Official Game Thread: Bucks at Hawks -- ECF GAME 3

[lethalweapon3]

“Been There. Done That. Made The T-Shirt!”

 

The Hawks had the Bucks dead-to-rights. In their house, Atlanta’s Omni Coliseum.

The prize that awaited Atlanta was a date with destiny. The season before, a classic nip-and-tuck affair between Dominique Wilkins and Larry Bird, at hallowed Boston Garden, had the Hawks coming up on the short end but earning the admiration of NBA fans everywhere. It was far too late to establish Atlanta, in their lovely red-and-yellow jerseys, as The Team of the 80’s. But who would take the lead and rule the roost in the final full season of the decade?

After edging the Hawks in 1988’s second-round series, the Celtics would relinquish the Eastern Conference crown for the first time in five years, to Isaiah Thomas and the Pistons. The next season, Boston lost Bird to a season-ending injury early, leaving the NBA East as wide open as it had been in recent memory. Who would challenge the new kings of the East, in their Auburn Hills palace?

Chicago, and Michael Jordan? As far as anyone could tell, the eventual 6^th-seeded Bulls weren’t ready. Cleveland, and Brad Daugherty? A breakthrough season awaited, but the core of Lenny Wilkens’ 3-seed Cavs were so young. Patrick Ewing and the Knicks? They would win the Bird-less Atlantic Division. But they finished with the exact same 52-30 record as Nique and the Hawks, who improved on the prior year’s 50-32 mark. Entering the playoffs, on the heels of the Nique-Bird duel… why not Atlanta?

The window was open for the 4-seed Hawks, as the top-seeded Bad Boys, who easily swept the Celts, awaited their arrival. All Atlanta had to do was to Take Care of Business, on its homecourt, before a heavily partisan crowd. Their opponents? A Milwaukee club the Hawks played, and swept, in the regular season, winning all six times by an average of 11.0 points per game. The core of the same Bucks team that the Hawks bounced, 3 games to 2, out of the first round with a Game 5 home win the prior postseason.

Milwaukee began that season at a gaudy 40-19 but stumbled across the finish line with 14 losses in the final 23 games, including two versus the Hawks, one in Atlanta by 25 points. Defensive maven Paul Pressey, whose late-season injury greased the skid, would be unavailable for the entire first-round series. Seemingly on his last legs, point guard Sidney Moncrief was about ready to retire.

This wasn’t the Bucks’ series to win. Not until Atlanta made it that way.

Including the prior year’s first-round faceoff, the Hawks and Bucks always held serve at home in the playoffs. That was until Game 2 at the Omni, when the Hawks could not contain super-sixth-man Ricky Pierce and Milwaukee cruised to a 108-98 win, wasting Wilkins’ 32-point effort. With the 5-game series turned to the underdogs, the Bucks were in position, at the MECCA, to close out the series upset.

Wilkins’ contemporary, fellow All-Star and NBA All-3^rd-Teamer Terry Cummings, hurt his ankle early in Game 4. Led by All-Stars Moses Malone and Dominique, plus John Battle off the bench, the Hawks capitalized and survived in OT on Milwaukee’s famous Robert Indiana floor. Cummings, like Pressey, was left with no choice but to watch from Wisconsin as the series shifted, for the last time, back to Georgia.

For the Bucks, with their seasons on the line, there would be no leading scorer, no top defender. Problem?

“The shot on Ehlo GOOD! BULLS WIN!” was ringing in everyone’s ears that day. Perhaps too loudly, at the Omni, for the Hawks to realize they were getting tuned up by not just Pierce, but Fred Roberts, Paul Mokeski and Jay Humphries. Bucks rookie behemoth Tito Horford didn’t have to lift a finger.

Thanks to buzzer-beaters sunk by Mokeski and Roberts, and a plethora of missed Hawk free throws, Atlanta could not sustain a lead in any quarter. The Omni crowd felt a wave of relief when the Hawks grabbed an 86-85 lead on the Cummings-less and Pressey-less visitors, with just under three minutes to go in the elimination game. But then Atlanta let the Bucks rattle off eight straight, a Doc Rivers three-pointer proved too little, too late, and all was lost. Including, that date with destiny in Detroit.

“This will be hard for us to get over,” Wilkins said after the Game 5 loss. He didn’t know the half of it. The next season, Rivers would be out due to injury for two months, Atlanta would sink to 41-41, 6^th in the Central Division. Pete Babcock would arrive from Denver to help a busy Stan Kasten run things, and longtime coach Mike Fratello would resign after Atlanta narrowly missed the playoffs, finishing just behind Pierce’s Bucks, coach Lenny’s Cavs and Reggie Miller’s Pacers.

With Jordan answering the call in 1991 to overtake the Pistons, not Dominique in 1989, the window for the Hawks’ Finals hopes had closed. For at least a few more years.

Taking Care of home. It’s what likely would have made such a difference for Wilkins and his Hawks at the Omni, as their fates entered the 1990s. With his statue now perched at the entrance to State Farm Arena, and the balance of power in the NBA East once again up for grabs in the 2020s, Taking Care of Home is what would make the difference for a fresh, new group of Hawks to boldly go where no Atlanta team has gone before, the NBA Finals.

The common denominator? The visiting Milwaukee Bucks (8:30 PM Eastern, TNT, 92.9 FM in ATL, Postgame Coverage on Bally Sports Southeast), in town for Games 3 and 4. No worries, Atlanta! Tito and Mokeski retired long ago.

Despite a washout loss in Game 2 of this series, the underdog Hawks upset Milwaukee in Game 1, granting themselves the opportunity once more to maintain homecourt advantage and close out coach Mike Budenholzer’s Bucks in no more than six games. But this is a far more challenging visitor than the ’89 Hawks faced, thanks to the whirling dervish that is Giannis Antetokounmpo around the paint.

Giannis was a rolling, spinning highlight reel in Milwaukee’s 125-91 win on Friday night, but he didn’t need to put up pinball-tilting figures (25 points, 3-for-4 FTs, 9 rebounds in 2.5 quarters). Teammates Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton did the dirty work in pestering Atlanta ace Trae Young (2021 Playoffs-high 3 assists, 9 TOs, 1-for-8 3FGs) while Holiday, Brook Lopez and Pat Connaughton (combined 9-for-12 3FGs) hit the key jumpers Atlanta (Traemates combined 8-for-28 3FGs) could not. Multiple Bucks chipping in to balloon the lead gave Giannis, his fellow starters and, by extension, Atlanta’s starters, a respite ahead of Game 3.

The lack of a secondary ballhandler production, either off the bench or sharing the floor with Young, is a challenge that coach Nate McMillan and the Hawks have to overcome in this three-day homestand. McMillan leaned on Young to sort out his Game 2 struggles to make better reads and connect with teammates for too long. Deploying Lou Williams for longer stretches, as a substitute for either Trae Young or Bogdan Bogdanovic, in combination with a back-in-action Cam Reddish, could make for better balance in the Hawks backcourt.

With Atlanta getting gashed on the boards in Milwaukee, sixth-man Danilo Gallinari has to expand his focus beyond his patented up-periscope jumpshots and help secure rebounds on defense, when John Collins and Clint Capela are occupied with Antetokounmpo and/or Lopez. Having to rely on Solomon Hill to lead the bench in minutes, as became the case once Atlanta waved the white flag in Game 2, is not a scenario conducive to securing homecourt victories.

Both Eastern Conference Finals entrants have reason to celebrate reaching this stage. Milwaukee tried tanking in Giannis’ rookie year, were rewarded with Jabari Parker and Thon Maker during the come up, but eventually realized acquiring a sound cast of savvy vets and scrappy prospects around their emerging supernova was the best approach. The Hawks weren’t huge winners in the NBA Draft Lotteries during their rebuilding phases, either. They aren’t tying their successes solely on the haul of Lottery picks, including Reddish and the injured De’Andre Hunter, to get them to this stage and pull them through. Not this year, anyway.

If Atlanta comes away from Games 3 and 4 with a decided advantage, it’s because veteran supporters, from LouWill to Gallo, stepped up their games when called upon. With better contributions from developed non-Lottery talent like John Collins and Kevin Huerter, the Hawks returning to more competitive rebounding, timely shooting, and proper closeouts on the Bucks’ shooters, will aid in Taking Care of Business before its home fans. This remains the Bucks' playoff series to win, only, if Atlanta allows it to be that way.

With a year-round focus on competitanking for future game-changing talent in the rear-view mirror, Hawks fans are no longer feeling a draft. Yet here, in the Hawks’ downtown arena, fans recognize there remains, unmistakably, an open window. Take Care, Atlanta!

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

Limit TOs, Rebound the ball, get back on defense. 

I'll say the same thing I did vs Sixers - get Trae going downhill faster to avoid playing against the Bucks half court defense.

[JeffS17]

Curious, anyone know what jerseys we're wearing tonight?

[AHF]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Limit TOs, Rebound the ball, get back on defense. 

I'll say the same thing I did vs Sixers - get Trae going downhill faster to avoid playing against the Bucks half court defense.

Still waiting for a hot game from 3 as well.

As an aside, that Bucks series we lost in the 80’s was burned in my head for years after the way we swept them in the regular season.  That one hurt.  Such a bad beat series.

[Hawkmoor]

Atlanta has to win both games at home. Milwaukee isn't playing around with them. The Bucks are upset about the shimmy.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Hawkmoor

[marco102]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Limit TOs, Rebound the ball, get back on defense. 

I'll say the same thing I did vs Sixers - get Trae going downhill faster to avoid playing against the Bucks half court defense.

You have to be careful here though.  The Bucks are a great transition team so you don't want to go too fast on the offense.  Run your stuff and slow the game down so we can play half court defense. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

15 minutes ago, Hawkmoor said:

Atlanta has to win both games at home. Milwaukee isn't playing around with them. The Bucks are upset about the shimmy.

 

The Bucks aren't more upset about the shimmy, more than they let Trae drop 48 points on them and completely control the game.  The media are the ones who are enamored about a simple shrug, when no one on the Bucks team came to rotate over to Trae for a full 3 seconds.  It was a nice moment.  But in the grand scheme of things, that shrug wasn't more disrespectful than Trae just doing whatever the hell he wanted in Game 1.

As for Atlanta needing to win both games at home, I disagree.  It would be extremely beneficial if they did, but I don't think it's the end of the world if they split in Atlanta.

What they can't lose is both games at home.  That would be catastrophic.

[bleachkit]

Best of 5. Gotta protect home court. 

[Spud2nique]

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

Bucks rookie behemoth Tito Horford didn’t have to lift a finger.

Lol forgot he was on that team too busy hating Sikma, Robert’s, Schayes, lil Stevie Henson, I really hated that squad. Lol.

 

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

Deploying Lou Williams for longer stretches, as a substitute for either Trae Young or Bogdan Bogdanovic, in combination with a back-in-action Cam Reddish, could make for better balance in the Hawks backcourt.

This. We need Lou to step up.

 

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

If Atlanta comes away from Games 3 and 4 with a decided advantage, it’s because veteran supporters, from LouWill to Gallo, stepped up their games when called upon.

This. History tends to repeat itself and a vet ALWAYS steps up in these circumstances at home for a young ball club.

 

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

John Collins and Kevin Huerter,

19 is my second fav #

 

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

open window.

We are young but we got grit.

 

Awesome game thread as usual lw3 you are the man. Happy Sunday Squawkers!!!! LETS GET IT!!!! We stole home court, lets keep it.

GO HAWKS!

[Spud2nique]

10 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

As for Atlanta needing to win both games at home, I disagree. 

No we don’t but it would sure help out. 

[Spud2nique]

2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

close out coach Mike Budenholzer’s Bucks in no more than six games.

I want this. We get both games here, possible drop game 5 and win it back in the A.

But one game at a time. 

[hawkman]

Just now, Spud2nique said:

No we don’t but it would sure help out. 

Yeah, going back to Milwaukee 3-1 sounds a heck of a lot better than 2-2. The pressure on them would be immense.

[Spud2nique]

Just now, hawkman said:

Yeah, going back to Milwaukee 3-1 sounds a heck of a lot better than 2-2. The pressure on them would be immense.

Yes sir and getting back to the A for game6, can you imagine what an atmosphere. Hawks fan will be loud just for the chance to go to the finals. Oh man.

Focus baby focus! One game at a time. Let’s get this thing today.

[hawkman]

Just now, Spud2nique said:

Yes sir and getting back to the A for game6, can you imagine what an atmosphere. Hawks fan will be loud just for the chance to go to the finals. Oh man.

Focus baby focus! One game at a time. Let’s get this thing today.

^This. A win today means the team recovered from that beatdown in Game 2 and made adjustments. Another blowout would be demoralizing. 

[Spud2nique]

By the way updated lines..

Bucks -5  o/u 224

[Spud2nique]

Teams that have led 3-1 in a best-of-seven series have gone on to win 95% of the time (251-13); in conference finals series, those teams own a 52-4 record (93%).

[RandomFan]

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 hour ago, JeffS17 said:

Curious, anyone know what jerseys we're wearing tonight?

 

If they came out in these, what would be the response by the league?

Would the team get fined?  Would the league make them change uniforms?

I know the corporate people would be upset, because their logo wouldn't be on the uniform

 

 

What I DON'T want to see, are these uniforms.  I'd much rather for them to wear the white unis or the MLK uniforms, than to put these on.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

15 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

By the way updated lines..

Bucks -5  o/u 224

 

It was ( -4 )  last night, so the line is going up.

[JayBirdHawk]