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Hawks clobber Celtics in Game 5 despite major early scoring woes
The final score of the Atlanta Hawks' series-tilting 110-83 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of their series suggests that the game was one-sided and the result was rarely in doubt. Yet the margin of victory does not communicate the depths of the Celtics' disappointing performance in this pivotal game, because they very easily could have taken control of the contest early and moved towards a blowout of their own. Instead, they head home down 3-2 and face elimination in Game 6 at TD Garden on Thursday night.
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It's remarkable that the Hawks were able to win so handily given their early struggles. Atlanta scored just 19 points in the first 18 minutes of the game, breaking 20 right at the 6:00 mark of the second quarter on a Paul Millsap lay-up. That bucket ended a terrible offensive stretch for the Hawks, who opened the game shooting 6-of-34 (17.6 percent) from the field and 2-of-12 from three-point range on their way to a 29-19 deficit. The Celtics' own inability to score was really the only saving grace for the host Hawks, who very easily could have trailed by 20 after 1 1/2 quarters.
Millsap's lay-in opened the floodgates, though, and the Hawks encountered little resistance from that point forward. It started a run of 11 made field goals in a row (including five three-pointers) for a 28-10 run that turned the aforementioned 10-point deficit into an eight-point halftime lead.
Atlanta's breakthrough changed the course of the game, but it wasn't such a surprise given what had occurred through the opening 18 minutes. While both teams had trouble scoring, there was a sense that Boston had squandered an opportunity to build a bigger lead against a team with many more high-level scoring options. Surely someone was going to get going for the Hawks before the end of the first half. It just so happened that the entire team started playing at a higher level during that 11-make streak. Regardless, the halftime margin was only 47-39, so it's not as if the Hawks had seized overwhelming control due to their strong close to the second quarter.
The game-winning run came soon enough. Up 55-50 a little more than four minutes of the third, Atlanta went on a 29-8 run from the 7:39 through 2:15 marks of the third quarter to open up an 84-58 lead that turned the entire fourth quarter into extended garbage time. The Hawks continued their hot shooting and looked a step faster than the Celtics, scoring 42 points in the period with seeming ease. The lead got as high as 34 in the fourth, and a game that seemed like Boston's to lose early on ended in an overwhelming Atlanta win.
Nevertheless, the Celtics' struggles arguably defined the result moreg than the Hawks' prowess. While the Hawks certainly scored at unsustainable levels during their second and third quarter runs, they also are unlikely to shoot 6-of-34 from the field in the opening 18 minutes of any other game this postseason. The box score does not showcase a particularly strong game for the Hawks — they shot 43.8 percent from the field, made 14-of-36 three-pointers, and didn't have any player score more than 17 points. Role players like Kent Bazemore and Mike Scott performed better than expected, but it's also fair to assume that Paul Millsap and Al Horford will do better than a combined 16 points on 6-of-19 shooting in Game 6.
On the other hand, the Celtics could be facing real challenges over the rest of their series. Injuries to Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk have Brad Stevens during to lesser options to sustain the team's trademark defensive energy, and the offense looks pedestrian whenever Isaiah Thomas isn't in top form. He certainly wasn't on Tuesday, when he failed to score in the first half and shot just 3-of-12 for seven points. To make matters worse, Thomas left the game early in the fourth quarter with an ankle sprain and did not return:
The injury does not appear to be serious, but Thomas says he tweaked the same ankle in Game 4, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
The best news for the Celtics is that they looked in similarly rough shape after a Game 2 blowout and came back to win two home games to tie the series. Boston should look much better on the parquet floor in Game 6, but it's possible that playing shorthanded is beginning to wear on them.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
