He finally got himself a bobblehead. So happy for Nipsey Russell!
((Ongoing computer issues, so here’s a condensed version. Happy Easter and Happy Passover to all enjoying the holidays!))
Offense Wins Championships! You know the not-so-old adage by now. It’s kind of a shame for our Atlanta Hawks that they come into the NBA Playoffs with the Eastern Conference’s best defensive efficiency at the worst possible time.
For their trouble, Mike Budenholzer’s interior-defensive-minded crew gets to wrangle in the opening round with the favored Washington Wizards (Game 1: 1:00 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, TNT), who have finally embraced the magic of the three-point jumpshot as a team. There’s little surprise that the Wizards’ greatest-ever offensive efficiency coincides with their first division title and most regular-season wins (still not 50? Geez!) since d*ck Motta’s NBA Finalists back in 1979.
Dwight Howard enters this series with all the look and countenance of Barney the Dinosaur, albeit a lot less tubby. Tall in stature, grinning from ear-to-ear, playful, lots of equally playful friends around him. He loves ATL, ATL loves him, and he bears no earthly idea just how close his game is hurtling toward extinction.
But why should Dwight care about how the times are a changin’, anyway? Besides, the happy-go-lucky Howard was one of a handful of players who were on the floor in each of the past two seasons to help beat the Golden State Warriors in a conference playoff game. Two seasons ago, he tag-teamed with James Harden and carried a starting unit that featured Josh Smith AND Jason Terry back from 3-1 down to reach a Conference Finals. He was on the floor during one of the last two times LeBron James tried, and failed, to reach the NBA Finals.
The Hawks are in the playoffs for the tenth consecutive season, but the crushing weight of blowout postseason losses have been a drain over the years for its fans. The common denominator throughout almost all of those years of pummeling playoff exits now dons clover green for the East’s top seed.
Howard is quite familiar with those beatdowns of the past. Back when NBA fans used to seek out his jerseys, back when he could pose as Superman with barely a snicker uttered from the stands, his Magic was in Atlanta setting the NBA record for the largest margin of victory in a four-game sweep. Orlando’s 101 extra points in the 2010 conference semis eclipsed the 72-point margin LeBron’s Cavs enjoyed versus the Hawks just one season prior.
Dwight was also front-and-center in 2011, when the Hawks finally pulled it together and toppled the higher-seeded Magic, then the defending conference champs, in front of a rabid Philips Arena crowd. Perhaps it was here where Howard came to discover just how True To Atlanta Hawks fans can be. He would love to feel that same unwavering support now that he wears his NBA hometown across his chest for a playoff run.
Leading the NBA Playoffs in per-game rebounding, as Dwight has done in two of the last three seasons (NBA-high 13.9 RPG since 2013-14), doesn’t carry the same cachet it once did, when guys named Shaq, Ben Wallace and Tyson Chandler were in their championship heydays. But this is Playoff Dwight, and Playoff Dwight is what Atlanta has committed itself to pay for. There will be no more Hawks starting centers biding time until the closing seconds of pivotal games to make impactful rebounds. There’s one man standing in the way of Dwight Howard’s domination of the glass in this series, and that man is Dwight’s former understudy in Orlando.
Similarly on the right side of 40, Marcin Gortat isn’t likely to stand in Dwight’s way the whole time. He’ll spend a lot of the time out of the paint on offense, setting screens to spring free his backcourt stars, John Wall and Bradley Beal, and occasionally popping jumpers (35.8 jumpshot FG%). Gortat will go inside to loft his nifty hook shot (61.2 FG% on hooks), or wherever the opportunity to draw fouls on Howard is greatest.
Besides avoiding foul trouble, Howard’s challenges in this series include trusting his teammates, including All-Defensive Team candidate Paul Millsap, to cover the rim and avoid the urge to sag on opponents’ screens. He and Schröder will keep the Hawks competitive in this series if they keep the ball from sticking, setting sound picks, involving teammates, and making decisive plays in the flow of the offense, before Wall and the Wizards (8.5 team SPG, 2nd in NBA) can sink their teeth in defensively and spark their own transition plays (17.7 PPG off TOs, most in East). The Hawks can make an even stronger run if the resurgent bench performers, including Ersan Ilyasova, Kris Humphries (on our side, this time around) and Jose Calderon, don’t compound whatever offensive mistakes their starters make with their own.
While Atlanta fields one of the older and playoff-seasoned rosters in the Eastern Conference, this postseason run for Dwight and the Hawks needs not be a Last Hurrah. The pressure is on Wall, Beal, Gortat and the Wizards, not the Hawks, to demonstrate they’re finally ready to turn the corner by overcoming the franchise that last dispatched them in their last playoff game in 2015. This series will remain intriguing so long as the Hawks treat this Hurrah as if it’s merely the first one.
Let’s Go Hawks!
~lw3
