No one expected the Hawks to push the Celtics to a Game 6, but on Thursday night the two teams returned to Atlanta for what turned out to be a rather thrilling conclusion to a surprisingly entertaining series.
Boston jumped out to a 12-2 early advantage, only to see the Hawks storm back to take their own 7-point lead before the game settled into a back-and-forth affair. Neither team could grab control of the action until the late fourth quarter, when Boston got a string of big time buckets and big time stops on the other end to extend their lead out to eight with the Hawks going more than four minutes without a made shot. By the time the Hawks offense found its footing again, the deficit was almost insurmountable, but Atlanta doomed itself with one of the strangest sequences we’ll see all playoffs.
After Bogdan Bogdanovic went 1-of-3 from the line to cut the deficit to six, the Hawks retained possession on a ball that went out of bounds on the sideline deep in the corner of the court. From there, the Hawks failed on four consecutive attempts at getting the ball in play, with Trae Young throwing it off of Marcus Smart twice (including one straight into Smart’s nuts) and De’Andre Hunter bouncing one off Al Horford before throwing a pass to absolutely no one for a turnover.
It really is one of the most bizarre things you’ll see in the playoffs, as the Hawks simply could not get the ball in play, as if they’d never worked on an inbounds play from the corner all season. Young struggled with Smart’s length, while Hunter seemed likewise bothered by Horford, and the result was Atlanta not even getting a chance at a miraculous comeback because they could never get the ball to a shooter. Boston would ice the game at 128-120 to advance to the conference semis where the Heat are waiting, and while this wasn’t quite Grayson Allen dribbling out the clock on Milwaukee’s season, it was certainly a rough way for the Hawks to close out a series in which they fought so valiantly.