The funeral dirge started early.
It got louder with each Hawks miss. By the third quarter it was deafening.
It was almost premature.
The Hawks went on a furious fourth-quarter rally to nearly erase a 19-point deficit that had Philips Arena bursting at the girders. However, the Hawks season came to an abrupt end Friday night after an atrocious early shooting performance led to a hole from which they could not fully extract themselves.
The result was a painful 81-73 Game 6 loss to the Pacers at Philips Arena. With it, the Hawks were eliminated from the Eastern Conference first-round playoffs series, 4-2. It could have been the final game in a Hawks uniform for Josh Smith after a nine-year with his hometown team.
“I feel for our fans,” said Al Horford, one of just three players signed to be back next season. “I know they wanted us to do better. I felt like, as a team, we did about as much as we could. We had some adversity and we handled it well. We had a good season, looking at the big picture. One thing I appreciate about these guys was how they competed. Even tonight, we could’ve gone the other way. That is something I’m proud of the guys for.”
The Pacers snapped a 13-game losing streak in Atlanta, both regular season and playoffs, to get the first road win of the series. The average margin of victory in the six games was 15.8 points.
The Hawks, who scored just a franchise low nine second-quarter points, cut the 19-point deficit to three points in the fourth quarter with a Horford dunked with 2:39 remaining. David West scored down low and then blocked a Smith 3-pointer with less than a minute to go to seal the clinching win. The Pacers went 4 of 6 from the free-throw line in the closing minute.
“We found some life late, but it was too little, too late,” Smith said.
Horford finished with 15 points for the Hawks. Devin Harris and Smith each had 14 points. Korver had 12 points and Jeff Teague added 10. In all, the five players combined to shoot 34 percent (22 of 65).
George Hill and West each scored 21 for the Pacers. Roy Hibbert had 17 points and 11 rebounds. All-Star Paul George was limited to four points.
The Hawks went without a field goal for 12:56 – with 17 straight misses – between the second and third quarter and the Pacers opened up a 13-point lead, 44-31. After a nine-point second quarter with just one field goal, the Hawks started the third quarter by missing eight straight attempts. Finally Harris was awarded a layup, on a goaltending call, with 9:39 remaining in the period. It was the first basket since Korver scored with 10:35 left in the second period.
Game over. Season over.
“When you get in those type situations, as a coach, what you try to do is just remind them that you are going to weather the storm,” said coach Larry Drew, who is also in the final year of his contract. “We went through a drought where it seemed like there was a lid on the basket. Out of timeouts, you try to put them in a situation to get the highest-percentage shot and you hope that that will stop the bleeding. But when you get good looks and the shot doesn’t fall, there is not a lot you can do about that.”
The Pacers took a 65-50 advantage into the final quarter. By the end of the quarter the Hawks were shooting just 27.6 percent (16 of 58).
In a dreadful first half – and an especially awful second quarter – the Hawks trailed 37-29 at the intermission.
The Hawks made just one second-quarter field goal in shooting 6.7 percent (1 of 15). The Korver basket and 7 of 8 shooting from the free-throw line was the Hawks’ only offense.
Somehow they only trailed by eight points going into halftime and that was because the Pacers, nearly has bad, finished with a 6-0 run.
Through the first half, Smith (1 of 8), Horford (1 of 5), Korver (1 of 5), Teague (2 of 8), Harris (2 of 7) and Johan Petro (2 of 5) accounted for the woeful totals. The Hawks shot 23.7 percent (9 of 38) in the first half. The Pacers shot 36.6 percent (15 of 41). The teams combined for 25 points in the second quarter.
“The last couple of games we couldn’t make no shots,” Teague said. “It was one of those games. I guess you could say it was good defense. We had open looks though. It was just not knocking down shots. It finally caught up with us.”
Since moving to Atlanta, the Hawks are 5-8 in Game 6s, including a 3-5 record at home.
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