The Atlanta Hawks got lucky. Not only have they been paired against as shaky a No. 1 seed as the NBA has ever seen, but this No. 1 seed is at its shakiest when facing the Hawks. There’s more to be gained here than an eyebrow-raising victory or two. There’s an actual series to be won.
The Hawks took their good fortune and ran with it in Game 1, beating Indiana 101-93 after leading by 20 points near the end. Coming 13 days after an even worse thrashing, Saturday’s loss left the once-proud Pacers facing all manner of public questions — should they change their lineup? — and private doubts. On ESPN, the former NBA coach George Karl called them “a broken basketball team.” On TNT, the erudite Charles Barkley labeled them “wussies.”
Game 2 arrives Tuesday and for the Pacers it’s as big as any they’ll play this season. Win and they can make the case, however dubious, that Game 1 was simply a matter of the Hawks, as Paul George blithely suggested, playing “as good as they can play.” Lose and the East’s top seed — characterized as the “East’s Flop Seed” in an Indianapolis Star headline — could get swept.
Political wisdom holds that when an opponent is the process of destroying himself, it’s best to get out the way. That won’t work for the Hawks. They must press their advantage. The Pacers could right themselves in Game 2, or they could collapse once and for all. The longer the series goes, the more it favors Indiana. The Hawks have a rare opportunity to make history in a hurry, but for that to happen they’ll have to be as daring in Game 2 as in Game 1.
The guess is that they will be. They might not win Tuesday, but it won’t be for the absence of effort. The Hawks have developed a clear idea of what they need to do. As Kyle Korver said after Game 1, “We’ve gotten better.”
Working with a new coach and two new starters, the regular season was never going to be smooth, and then Al Horford was lost to injury and everything got crazy. “We really had three seasons in one,” Korver said, meaning the first 26 games with Horford, the 40 games in which at least one post-Horford starter was missing and the 18 in which they had their full non-Horfy complement.
With Horford, they’d risen to No. 3 in the East. Without him but with everybody else, they were still pretty good. (After winning Game 1, the Hawks are 13-6 with this starting five.) It was only when Korver or Paul Millsap or Pero Antic was ailing — and all, at one time or another, were — that the Hawks were ever flimsy and that’s an endorsement of their system. The lessons Mike Budenholzer was hired away from San Antonio to impart have been imparted. The Hawks have become not just adapters but believers.
“We play the same way against every team,” said Jeff Teague, the star of Game 1. “We have a system we run.”
Against Chicago, a team with quicker big men, the system works less well. (The Hawks were 0-4 against the Bulls.) Against the Pacers, the system — “A lot of ball movement, a lot of player movement and a lot of pace,” to quote Budenholzer — has driven a 56-win team to distraction and conspicuous disgruntlement.
“We feel really good about this matchup,” Korver said, speaking after Monday’s practice at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
But a dancing heavyweight (an Ali, say) can’t get so emboldened that he draws too near a slugger (a Frazier), lest he wind up on his backside. “They have great size and length,” Korver said. “If the game slows down, that’s to their advantage. We have to continue getting stops and getting rebounds so we can get out and run.”
The Hawks, who were bad at rebounding and only so-so at defending over the regular season, did both very well in Game 1. They scored 14 second-chance points, most of those coming off a series of long rebounds that left Pacers coach Frank Vogel lamenting his team’s lack of hustle. You have to figure the desperate Pacers won’t be so timid Tuesday.
But you also have to figure the Hawks grasp the possibilities arrayed before them. They’ve got a reeling opponent that they’ve beaten badly twice this month. They’ve gotten as healthy as a team missing its best player can be, and they’ve got a coach and a system they trust. “We don’t feel like we’re an eighth seed,” Millsap said Saturday, and they aren’t acting the part.
Almost any No. 8 seed can steal a game. Only five have ever won a series. The Hawks are in prime position to become the sixth. As huge as Game 2 is for the Pacers, it’s likewise massive for the underdog.
