The jump-shooting Hawks win a massive Game 5
Some of their critics — and this No. 1 seed has many critics, with the number growing exponentially over a lost long weekend in Brooklyn — have characterized the Hawks as just a jump-shooting team. In a moment of major doubt, the jump-shooting team won with jump shots Wednesday. Fitting, no?
Nothing else the Hawks had tried in this jittery Game 5 would make the Brooklyn Nets, the worst team among playoff qualifiers, go away. Ahead by 17 points after one quarter, the Hawks saw their working margin reduced to nearly nothing. It was down to two after sub Jarrett Jack, that Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech, sank his second 3-pointer of the fourth quarter, down to one after he hit from the lane.
And here all Atlantans, as accustomed as any constituency anywhere to the postseason cosmic bringdown, had dark visions of Danny White slicing up the Falcons in January 1981, of Cliff Levingston bricking the running lefty hook in May 1988, of Mark Wohlers throwing the slider in October 1996. Another wobble and the No. 1 seed would be facing elimination Friday back in Brooklyn, where the Hawks had just lost twice. Another wobble and …
Enough. There was no other wobble, not this night. Jeff Teague sailed home a nerveless trey, the Hawks’ third of a frantic fourth quarter. DeMarre Carroll dropped in a layup off Paul Millsap’s feed to make it a six-point lead. After a Joe Johnson 3-pointer, Al Horford nailed a 20-footer. (Soon he would make another, about which more later.)
If you’re counting, five of the Hawks’ six baskets over the most pressurized 5:17 of the season came from 20 feet or beyond. The jump-shooters made good on the jump shots that kept a hairbreadth series from swinging toward the No. 8 seed. They weren’t perfect down the stretch, but they were good enough to win the biggest game of what has been a sweet season, a game so immense that losing might have made everything go sour.
“They were desperate,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins said, “and it showed.”
Desperate in a good way, though. Desperate to restore order in a series that didn’t figure to be much of a series. Desperate to prove they weren’t just a team that could look spiffy in January but could perform in the crucible of the postseason. Desperate to win a game they had to have.
Mike Budenholzer, who had seen a working lead disappear the fourth quarter of Game 4 due to the largess of his bench, kept his starting five — the starting five that had been named the collective Eastern Conference player of the month in that unbeaten January — in the game until the final 20 seconds, when the 107-97 victory was a fait accompli. That was desperate coaching, desperate and smart.
As good as Dennis Schroder and Mike Scott have been this season, the fourth quarter of Game 5 in a series tied at 2 was no place for the second unit. As it was, the Hawks’ starters were forced to the wall by the Nets, who are one of the strangest teams in creation.
Brooklyn won Game 4 because Deron Williams, who’d scored five points in Games 2 and 3, scored 35. In Game 5 he managed five. But sub Alan Anderson kept the Nets close with 19 first-half points, and Jack scored 12 in succession in the fourth quarter. As Butch said to Sundance: Who are these guys?
Even after four fourth-quarter jumpers, the Hawks still weren’t home and dry. Joe Johnson, of whom you’ve heard, drove the lane and was challenged by Al Horford, who has seen more Iso-Joes than anyone alive. Johnson’s runner to tie the game at 97 missed. Horford’s second 20-footer in just over a minute gave the Hawks a cushion, and two Jeff Teague drives — by then the Nets were themselves desperate to stop the jump-shooters — iced it.
“I thought Atlanta played extremely well,” Hollins said, and it did. Budenholzer credited his team’s “will to win,” but that will required a way. That way was to do as the Hawks have done these past two seasons, to spread the court and find the open man and trust that man to make a jump shot. Five of them sailed true, five in five-plus minutes, and a precious Game 5 was won.
About the Author
Mark Bradley is a sports columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has been with the AJC since 1984.
