Hawks Show Pride in Series Loss to Celtics
The Atlanta Hawks took their conference rival to six games but ultimately fell short.
At times, it felt like there could be a repeat of 2008.
It was 15 years ago this month that the Joe Johnson and Josh Smith-led Hawks illogically pushed the eventual world champion Boston Celtics to a seventh game in the first round of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs.
So, when the Hawks, down 0-2 in this year’s Eastern Conference quarterfinals, rode a franchise-record 74-point first half to pull off a gritty 130-122 home win over the Celtics in Game 3 to get back in the series, which preceded a most improbable 13-point fourth quarter comeback win in Game 5 in Boston, there was hope that the first postseason victories of the Trae Young/Dejounte Murray era could extend the series to a winner-take-all Game 7, where, as sports fans know, anything can happen.
But ultimately, there would be no such unexpected drama this year as Marietta native Jaylen Brown and the rest of the heavily favored Celtics held off the Hawks, 128-120, in Game 6 to take the series 4-2, ushering in an off-season full of great uncertainty for the locals.
Following the season-ending loss in Game 6, Hawks head coach Quin Snyder, who back in February was on a family vacation in South America when he was asked to take over the team for the stretch run after the departure of Nate McMillan, remarked, “Our goal was to be the best version of ourselves at the end of the year. I thought that continued from the regular season through the playoffs. You saw a group that was connected. Different guys came up big in different games. For the most part, I thought we executed. What I told them was that I am proud to have the opportunity to coach them and we talked about communicating, being competitive, and being connected. And I thought we were all three of those things.”
The Hawks, who earned the seventh seed by virtue of upsetting the Miami Heat in the play-in tournament, didn’t go quietly in the series finale. Game 6 was one that featured 22 lead changes and 15 ties, the last of which (113-113) occurred with under five minutes remaining before Boston, whose key contributors that evening were Brown (32 points) and fellow Atlanta native, and Sixth Man of the Year, Malcolm Brogdon (17), took over down the stretch.
But the lasting memory of a more compelling-than-expected playoff-opening series was Game 5, what goes down as one of the most iconic postseason wins in franchise history. Without arguably their best two-way player in Dejounte Murray (suspension following his altercation with an official at the conclusion of Game 4), the Hawks, with Young scoring their final 14 points, edged Boston, 119-117, to force the aforementioned Game 6 and subsequent postponement of a Janet Jackson concert at State Farm Arena.
“I’ve been owning the moment my whole life. That’s what I do,” Young said after his statement performance to seal the win in Boston that instilled a glimmer of hope in an often-overlooked Atlanta team. “I’m not afraid of it; I’ve worked too hard to be afraid of the moment.
“It’s really just the time and situation that shows itself. We’re down and it’s late in the game, I’m sitting on the line, and I know I’ve got to be more aggressive.”
After struggling to find his groove in Games 1 and 2 at Boston’s TD Garden, during which his coach urged him to, in fact, be more aggressive, Young was absolutely brilliant in engineering the Hawks’ stirring Game 5 comeback, looking very much like the superstar who dropped 32, 30, and 36 points against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden during Games 1, 2, and 5, respectively, of the 2021 Eastern Conference quarterfinals. Which meant that, naturally, he was once again serenaded with unprintable jeers in clutch time.
“When people do that, I just think that’s total respect,” said Young after an instant classic Game 5. “They ain’t doing it to everybody. It didn’t feel like the Knicks series. The Knicks series, [the chants] probably started with 10 minutes in the first quarter.”
Unfortunately, for Young and his many younger teammates, their play in the early part of the series did little to get the Celtics faithful worked up. While the Hawks made things interesting by stealing Games 3 and 5, and in doing so rekindling memories of the 2008 iteration, one that had current Celtics big man Al Horford, Boston established its dominance from the jump by taking a commanding 2-0 series lead after Games 1 and 2.
In the series opener, Boston raced out to a 74-44 halftime lead on its way to a 112-99 win. The main culprit behind the deflating loss: the Hawks struggled mightily from behind the arc, connecting on only 5 of 29 attempts from three-point land.
A few nights later, following the city’s much celebrated annual mid-spring marathon, of which longtime Hawks equipment manager Zac Walsh was a proud participant, Game 2 followed a similar script as Boston went into the second half with another sizable lead (61-49), and one it wouldn’t relinquish on the way to another 13-point victory (119-106). Although Young once again had an off-night shooting (9-22 with only a couple treys), his backcourt mate, Murray, poured in a career postseason high 29 points to go along with six rebounds and six assists to give Atlanta some momentum heading back home.
But as the rest of the series unfolded, it was not enough as a deeper, more defensive-minded Celtics team took two out of three in Atlanta over the following week to avoid following in the footsteps of the Milwaukee Bucks in getting upset by a scrappy underdog in the playoffs’ opening round.
“Everybody wants instant results, but it takes time,” said Hawks power forward John Collins after the series finale against Boston. “We added a lot into our rotation, into our roster, obviously we’re extremely talented and young as well. It’s not as easy as it might look on paper, but we do our best to compete. The entire team, I feel like we have an ecosystem that wants to get better.”
Everybody wants instant results, but it takes time…We added a lot into our rotation, into our roster, obviously we’re extremely talented and young as well. It’s not as easy as it might look on paper, but we do our best to compete. The entire team, I feel like we have an ecosystem that wants to get better.
Although it was an at times frustrating season in which the Hawks were constantly hovering around .500 and seemingly a far cry from their 2021 version that marched to the Eastern Conference Finals, this spring was indeed the third consecutive one in which they played postseason basketball. And they did so not just with veterans Young, Murray, and Clint Capela, but also with exciting up-and-comers such as De’Andre Hunter, Saddiq Bey, Jalen Johnson, and A.J. Griffin, who are bound to stay in the ATL for the foreseeable future.
Of course, going into this summer, the big question is, will Young? Although rumors abound of potential suitors for his services, he did drop a soundbite in his end-of-season press conference that sounds as though he feels comfortable with Snyder as his coach—something that wasn’t always the case with Snyder’s predecessors in Lloyd Pierce and McMillan.
“Quin is the future,” Young said. “I believe as we’re sitting here, this city is going to win a championship. It’s just about bringing in the right pieces for him.”
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