Official Game Thread: Wizards at Hawks: GAME 6

[lethalweapon3]

“If we HURRY… we can still make it to Fyre Festival after the game!”

 

Up a game in an Eastern Conference Playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks? The Washington Wizards’ John Wall, ahead of Game 6 at the Highlight Factory (7:30 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, CSN Mid-Atlantic in D.C., NBATV or ESPNU elsewhere), knows this is no time to get complacent. Or, at least, he should know.

Same deal for Bradley Beal, Otto Porter and Marcin Gortat. All three (with Kris Humphries in tow) recall winning the conference semifinals opener in Atlanta back in 2015, then winning Game 3 in D.C. despite Wall sitting out with an injured wrist. Up 2-1, with Game 4 in their house, Paul Pierce trolling to perfection and Wall returning by Game 5… game, set, match. Conference Finals, here we come!

Well, don’t call “series” just quite yet, Zards. The Hawks eked past the Wizards in three straight games, including twice at the Verizon Center, to steal Wall and the Wizards’ joy right out from under them.

Bojan Bogdanovic doesn’t need to hear about any of that. His Nets had tied up the prior series against the Hawks in Brooklyn, and had all the momentum (and media spotlight) swinging their way. Unfortunately for BoBo and company, Paul Millsap and Dennis Schröder (coming off the bench in his second NBA season) had other plans.

Don’t trouble Brandon Jennings with current events. He had the Hawks dead-to-rights in 2010, after his Bucks took three straight games, granting the emerging star an opportunity to clinch his first-ever playoff series in front of a raucous Game 6 Milwaukee crowd. The Bucks never got to 75 points the rest of the way, and Jennings never won another playoff game until last week.

The lesson? The moment you’re sure you have a playoff game, or series, in hand, the Hawks have you right where they want you. The question as Game 6 approaches is, have these Wizards learned this lesson?

Hopefully, the only decent shots fired anywhere around downtown Atlanta this busy weekend come off the hands of Tim Hardaway, Jr. (34.4 FG%) and Ersan Ilyasova (34.8 FG%). Along with Kent Bazemore (36.2 FG%), their collective struggles to find the bottom interior of the net have caused Atlanta to fail to take advantage of a wayward outside shooting by Beal (24.0 3FG%), Porter (35.7 3FG%), Bogdanovic (29.4 3FG%) and Markieff Morris (25.0 3FG%, playoff-high 24 personal fouls).

Beal even found time to stray away from Hawk shooters to defend Millsap, as was the case in crunch time of Washington’s 103-99 Game 5 victory. The Wiz were merely shooting 29.2 percent on threes in their home gym, so it would have made an immense difference had the Hawks shot better than 29.0 percent themselves.

Millsap (23.0 PPG, 9.2 RPG this series) found himself doing too much of a J-Smoovian impression before the Game 5 refs, forcing shots in anticipation of whistles and then griping when the tweets didn’t come. Sap finished off Game 4 falling away like a Mad Men silhouette while making buckets, and Atlanta will need that same intensity and focus around the paint from him to force a Game 7 on Sunday.

More important than the potential suppression of their free agent values, another disappointing display by the Hawks perimeter shooters also risks spoiling a pleasantly surprising performance from Hawks point guard Dennis Schröder (24.4 PPG). No one would have guessed that Schröder would lead NBA playoff starters (min. 3 starts) in assist-turnover ratio (7.2 APG, 1.6 TOs/game; 7.1 TO%, 4^th lowest in Playoffs), especially with Wall hovering around. Few would have expected Atlanta to have to rely on Dennis’ three-point shooting, either (43.8 3FG%), to stay in games. Yet, here we are.

Free throw makes were, and are, another factor that can swing the outcome in one team’s favor, and that’s not to put Dwight Howard, who himself knows a thing or two about bouncing back after being down in a series, on Front Street. More post touches for Howard today can help Atlanta thin out a Wizards frontline that may be even thinner without Jason Smith (knee sprain, game time decision) available.

Howard was 1-for-4 from the line on Wednesday evening, but his teammates also missed four freebies versus a Washington team that wasn’t going to miss many, not with Game 5 being a potential home finale. Especially for as long as the Hawks are cold from outside, they cannot afford to leave points from undefended shots on the table.

Atlanta has a chance to do today what neither Milwaukee nor Memphis could do last night: win an elimination game on its home floor. Motion and ball movement remains an offensive priority for the Hawks. But if there is a lull in the outside shooting, Schröder’s teammates need to cut to the rim and help re-establish the paint-points advantage that was lost to the Wizards (40-36) in Game 5, rather than leaving it Schröder and Millsap to play iso-hero-ball with Wall and Beal.

This playoff series will go not to a team that is satisfied with resting on their laurels, but to one that is instead intent on crafting new ones. Which team that is depends on whether Game 6 or Game 7 in the final contest in this series.

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

 

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[lethalweapon3]

We got lots of Colt .45s (not the malt liquor) and, later, "45" himself via motorcade, right across the street at GWCC today. So, preaching to the choir, but definitely take MARTA and/or the Streetcar to get to Philips today, Hawks fans! With that plus the I-85 stuff going on, Downtown traffic will be even more of "a Disaster!" than usual.

~lw3

[Guest]

LMMFAO @ the Gortat picture. That's gonna have me giggling like a little girl all day. Lw3, your threads are second to none. We are truly lucky to have these threads every year. Hoping this isn't the last one!

 

LETS GO ATLLLLLL!!!

 

ps My phone is off I will be watching the game in about 9 hours :-(

[Lurker]

Since my laptop is being annoying (constantly scrolling), I'm not sure I'm going to be in chat much tonight. If it gets weird like that again, I'll leave.

[lethalweapon3]

ESPNU preceded tonight's game with a "classic" UK-UConn game starring John Wall. I'm sure it was probably just too hard for ESPN to find any "classic" Louisiana Tech games.

The NBATV & ESPNU airings are simulcast. So if you're blacked out on NBATV and unable to catch Bob and Nique and the gang on FSSE, you can peek over to ESPNU (no Jon Barry as far as I can tell... Doug Collins).

~lw3

[Peoriabird]

14 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Since my laptop is being annoying (constantly scrolling), I'm not sure I'm going to be in chat much tonight. If it gets weird like that again, I'll leave.

You'll be there if Howard is sucking annoying lap top or not. LOL!

[kurupt]

I am calling it now: Hawks will lose because they get zero respect from the refs.

 

edit: This is without question the biggest travesty I have seen in a long time. HOW IN THE WORLD DOES BEAL NOT GET A TECH? HOW?

Plus, Gortat and Morris stepped onto the court. Which should be automatic suspension/ejections.

Edited April 29, 2017 by kurupt

[Alex]

Very pathetic showing early on.  Can't shoot the ball, can't defend their backcourt, and still have no clue how to get back on defense.

[Macknsweetjones]

I hate this team, just play pathetic each time...from TOS to stupid shots to pathetic defense 

[Dnice]

Hawks are going home, bring on the draft.

[Alex]

Very disappointed I didn't take Washington money line.  Can't believe I actually had some thought that the Hawks would win tonight.  

[Plainview1981]

It was only a matter of time before the team that got blown out in half their losses showed up.

[Thomas]

A lot of pain right now. Everybody getting smoked and on our own floor.

[Dnice]

They are going out like suckers.

[Dnice]

That run was just a tease, they're done. Have a good summer.

[capstone21]

Man we were killing it until Wall came down with that block on Dennis ... he then turned around went up the floor and made just an impossible shot ... momentum just switched from there on and Wall just started going in beast mode

[capstone21]

Is there a way to get Baz in another's uniform next season?

sap was big time frustrated this game ... most upset I have seen him in a game ... he was getting hacked ... and he was letting refs know it ... shocked he didn't get a T

[Thomas]

The experiment is now officially over for '16-'17. Got some youngsters to move forward with anyway.

[StephenHawking]

Would love to get Howard and Baze outta town. We've got a core of Dennis Prince and maybe THJ to build around. Let's see what happens in the offseason. Hopefully the FO has the courage to acknowledge their faults with giving contracts to Baze and Howard and makes the right moves now.

[NBASupes]

We lost this series when we resigned Bazemore and signed Dwight Coward