Hawks dig deep, shine late to knock off Wizards, tie series at 2-2

Markieff Morris made headlines and raised eyebrows following the Washington Wizards’ Game 3 loss to the Atlanta Hawks by calling Hawks All-Star Paul Millsap a “crybaby.” Millsap responded by saying the ongoing battle between the two teams had “definitely got[ten] personal now.” Evidently, “personal” suits these Hawks, because Millsap and company bounced back from a slow start to outclass the Wizards late on their way to a 111-101 win that knotted their best-of-seven set at 2-2.

After falling behind by as many as nine points in the first half, the Hawks responded with an excellent second quarter on both ends of the floor to size control of the game. And after Washington came roaring back in the third quarter behind the shot-making of Bradley Beal to tie the game at 77 heading into the fourth quarter, Atlanta took advantage of Wizards coach Scott Brooks’ decision to rest both Beal and All-Star point guard John Wall at the start of the final frame, blitzing the Wiz with a 10-2 run that gave the Hawks a lead they’d never relinquish.

“Teams go on runs. It’s just a matter of how we retaliate, and how we bounce back from it,” Beal said after the game. “It was just too up-and-down. Again, we were playing catch-up in the fourth, just trying to catch up and take the lead. You spend all your time and your energy playing catch-up, it kind of wears on you a little bit down the stretch.”

Millsap and point guard Dennis Schröder battled foul trouble and a lack of shot-making rhythm through the first three quarters. They turned it on in the fourth, though, getting back to the efficient and effective offense they provided in Game 3 by combining for 20 points on 11 field-goal attempts in the closing period to propel the Hawks past the finish line and into a two-all tie heading back to D.C. — the site of two pretty comfortable Wizards wins to start the series — for Wednesday’s pivotal Game 5.

Millsap missed eight of his first 11 shots, but finished with a team-high 19 points on 6-for-15 shooting to go with nine rebounds, seven assists and two steals in 36 minutes. He roundly outplayed Morris, who repeatedly struggled to defend Millsap’s face-up game, picking up five fouls in 24 minutes while scoring nine points on 3-for-10 shooting.

Millsap led seven Hawks in double figures, including Schröder (18 points, three rebounds, one assist in 28 minutes) and center Dwight Howard, who turned in his best game of the series (16 points, 15 rebounds, one block and one assist) and who did the bulk of his damage in a second quarter that saw Atlanta recover from a sluggish start to take charge.

The Hawks shot just 37.5 percent from the field as a team in the first, compared to 57.7 percent shooting for a Wizards squad once again getting contributions from Beal, Otto Porter Jr., Brandon Jennings and Jason Smith after leaving Wall to try to do it all himself in Game 3. After entering the second down 35-28, though, Atlanta began to assert itself midway through the frame, drawing inspiration and fire from reserves Kent Bazemore, who took on more of a playmaking and facilitating role in the second en route to 16 points, seven assists, four rebounds and three steals …

… and, somewhat surprisingly, Jose Calderon, who was pressed into duty after Schröder picked up his third foul trying to hang with Wall’s speed with 2:29 left in the first quarter, and who answered the call.

The Spaniard went nose-to-nose with Jennings, set the table for Howard and rookie forward Taurean Prince, extended a possession with an offensive rebound and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, including one with nine seconds remaining in the quarter that sent the Hawks into halftime with a 59-50 lead.

Calderon would finish with 10 points, five assists, two rebounds and a game-best plus-29 mark in 20 minutes of floor time, earning the 12-year NBA veteran a rare trip to the post-game podium.

The Wizards would get back into it after intermission, though, riding the hot hand of Beal — who scored 12 of his game-high 32 points in the third — and a cranked-up defensive effort (four Hawks turnovers leading to five points, Atlanta shot just 6-for-20 in the frame) to head into the fourth quarter tied at 77.

Just getting to that point, though, had already required a lot out of Washington’s star backcourt. Wall had logged just under 32 minutes through three quarters, and Beal had played just under 30, including all but 49 seconds of the third. Knowing he’d need his horses down the stretch, Wizards head coach Scott Brooks elected to rest both of his stars to start the fourth quarter.

It’s something he did a fair amount during his time in Oklahoma City, leaving many observers apoplectic at any minutes the Thunder played without one of Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook on the floor to lead the offense. It’s something he did a fair amount during his first season in Washington, with the Wizards playing 801 total Wall-and-Beal-free minutes during the 2016-17 campaign, according to nbawowy.com; it didn’t go so hot, as the Wiz got outscored by 7.8 points per 100 possessions in those minutes, worse than the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA-worst net rating.

But Washington had gotten away with it in brief doses earlier in the series, outscoring Atlanta by five points in 14 no-Wall-no-Beal minutes, and Brooks decided to trust a reserve-heavy lineup — starting swingman Porter alongside Kelly Oubre Jr. and Brandon Jennings, with Jason Smith and Bojan Bogdanovic in the frontcourt — to stay afloat for a few minutes while giving his stars a breather. It didn’t work out.

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Washington ripped off a quick 7-0 run as soon as its stars were reinserted, cutting the deficit to one on a driving layup by Wall with just under eight minutes left in the game. But Millsap would respond, feeding Prince for a layup and hitting one of his own to push the advantage back to five. And with five minutes remaining, after a missed 3 by Schröder, Millsap somehow came down with the offensive rebound in a sea of blue-and-red Wizards jerseys before converting a crazy heave for an and-one to make it a seven-point game:

If Millsap’s and-one wasn’t the dagger, then Schröder delivered it three minutes later, once again taking advantage of the Wizards’ refusal to chase him over screens — a defensible tactic, given his iffy 3-point stroke and the damage he can do off the bounce — by lofting a high-arcing triple that bounced around and went in to put Atlanta up by 10 with 1:47 to go:

Through two games, the Hawks didn’t seem to have any answers for the Wizards’ backcourt punch and frontcourt physicality. Back at home, they found some, in the form of Schröder’s unwavering confidence and relentless attacking, Millsap’s persistent dismantling of Morris, and renewed contributions from a bench that might go deeper than we thought.

Whether the likes of Bazemore, Calderon and Tim Hardaway Jr. can keep making plays when the scene shifts back to the nation’s capital on Wednesday remains to be seen, but the Hawks have now proven they can absorb Washington’s punches and still land enough of their own to stay in the fight. Now, it’s a best-of-three. No crybabies allowed.

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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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