Another big Friday in what has already been a year overstuffed with big Fridays — and we’re barely into March — arrived with the public unveiling of Dominique Wilkins’ statue and the advent of what some had taken, standings apparently aside, to calling the best team in the NBA East. The Dominique part was nice. The game itself was an anticlimax.
Turns out the team that actually holds the NBA’s best record is the class of the East. (Funny how that works, huh?) The Hawks built a working lead against Cleveland in the time it takes for some ESPN chatterer to say, “LeBron James is just waiting for the playoffs to turn it on.” Then they threw it back. Then they built another, and this one held.
We’ve been graced with so much great basketball lately that comparisons become inevitable, and here’s the latest: This game wasn’t nearly the cavalcade of excellence we saw when Golden State visited Feb. 5. Watching the Hawks and the Warriors made you look ahead to June and think, “Yeah, this could be your NBA finals.” Friday’s doings weren’t half so high-falutin’. The Hawks were clearly the better team.
That’s correct. The Hawks were better than Cleveland, against which it has won three in a row, none with great strain. The Hawks were better than the team that was supposed to have Figured Things Out, but here are items still on the Cavaliers’ to-do list: Find somebody Kevin Love can guard, and figure out whatever happened to LeBron James.
It would be wrong to make too much of one lesser night by a demonstrably great player, but LeBron’s performance Friday wasn’t even demonstrably good. He scored 18 points, only five in the first half, and finished with nearly twice as many turnovers (nine) as baskets (five). Miffed by DeMarre Carroll’s belly-to-belly defense, he spent the night begging the refs to bail him out. The refs mostly refused. (Indeed, LeBron got T’ed up.)
Being charitable, you could argue that LeBron was trying to play provider for his teammates, and he did have eight assists. But he left so little positive imprint on this game that, for the first time in the years I’ve been watching him — and I first saw him on MLK Day 2003 in Greensboro, N.C., playing for St. Vincent-St. Mary — I wondered if he’s on the back nine of his career. He’s only 30, but he’s in his 12th NBA season of heavy minutes and deep playoff runs, and he didn’t become the greatest since Jordan by being deferential.
I’m not sure I buy the he’s-pacing-himself excuse. For one thing, the Cavs aren’t good enough to wait for the postseason to turn it on. They’ve been playing better since their flurry of January trades — “We know how we want to play,” coach David Blatt said before Friday’s game — but they were nothing special against the Hawks. Cleveland was outscored by 14 baskets, outrebounded by an opponent that rarely outrebounds anybody and yielded 20 points off 18 turnovers.
But let’s give credit to the home side: The Hawks have known how they want to play for months. They made 51.2 percent of their shots and held the Cavs to 18 fourth-quarter points. The Hawks had six men in double-figures, one more than on that golden night against Golden State.
Kyle Korver, who hasn’t been the same since his All-Star game appearance, didn’t make a hoop until the fourth quarter, but his two treys in five possessions put the Hawks ahead by 10. It was 15 after the subs Dennis Schroder and Mike Scott topped off their latest big-game work, and then came the moment when you knew the Cavs were done.
With the Hawks up 10 inside the final five minutes, LeBron hoisted a 3-pointer that missed. The Cavs rebounded. LeBron took the ball again and did his stare-down thing, except that he was so busy staring that he didn’t notice Paul Millsap ripping the ball from his hands. Millsap threw long for Scott, whose flying dunk left ESPN in need of some other Eastern also-ran to tout.
There was no news made Friday, no revelation to be had. All we saw was what we around here have known for a while now: These Hawks are really good. They’re not 49-12 because they keep getting lucky.
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