PLAYOFFS 2023 POST GAME ATLANTA HAWKS - AWAY

Celtics Wrap: Boston Puts Atlanta Away In Nail-Biting Game 6 Win
Bring on the Sixers!


NESN by Gio Rivera

The Boston Celtics take their first-round series with the Atlanta Hawks, taking Game 6, 128-120, Thursday night at State Farm Arena.

The Celtics punch their ticket to the semifinal round, next set to face the Philadelphia 76ers.

ONE BIG TAKEAWAY
The Celtics had one job and they got it done.

With a second shot at a closeout win, Boston needed to put Atlanta away and not give the Hawks yet another shot at overcoming an improbable 3-1 series deficit. But the Hawks weren’t going away without a fight.

Atlanta came out firing after Boston quickly snagged a 12-2 lead to being the game, ensuring that the Celtics would earn their way to a series win. The Hawks were instantly aggressive on the offensive side, attacking mismatches and reaching for an outside shooting performance — 15-for-35 — similar to the one that uplifted them in Game 3. Whether it was DeAndre Hunter, John Collins or Bogdon Bogdonavic off the bench, Atlanta pulled out all the stops.

But none of it was enough to push a do-or-die Game 7 because his time, the Celtics didn’t fumble the fourth quarter.

STARS OF THE GAME
— Brown came up huge for the Celtics all night. In the first half, he knocked down four outside shots to keep the Hawks from taking a major lead. The 26-year-old scored 32 points, connecting on various big-time shots, including a game-tying three to knot the score up at 113 a piece in the fourth quarter. Brown shot 13-of-25 from the field and also grabbed five rebounds.


— Tatum finished the night with his fourth double-double of the playoffs, scoring 30 points while grabbing 14 along with six assists, shooting 11-of-20 from the field. The C’s are now 22-1 all-time when the Jays both score over 30 points.


— Trae Young kept the Hawks within reach, recording a team-leading 30 points. The long-range, trigger-happy guard, however, cooled off in the second half, going 1-for-12 from the field in the final two frames.

WAGER WATCH
Brown was a big helping hand in matching Atlanta’s early intensity, catching fire from 3-point range. FanDuel Sportsbook set the over/under on Brown’s 3-point total at 2.5 with -113 odds on the Over. By halftime, the All-Star cleared those odds, knocking down four of his first six attempts from beyond the arc. A $100 wager placed on Brown would’ve resulted in a $188.50 total payout.

UP NEXT
Moving on, the Celtics will begin their best-of-seven series with the 76ers on Monday night at TD Garden.

112288

Not the prettiest performance, but in the NBA playoffs is always better than a loss, and it still counts for a WIN.

Atlanta goes home and the Cs are Simply, On to Philly

Perhaps we needed a punch in the mouth to wake up for the playoffs. Miami lost to Atlanta and woke up before the Bucks. We need to raise our level and play.

I am fine with the Philly match up, I think that we have what it takes. The NY-Miami series will be interesting. Both teams are playing inspired. Who will come out on top?

We need our stars to realize that they will have to perform like the best for us to win it all this year.

ATL is a damn good team with many offensive weapons. I don't know why they had a poorvregular season, but they did nest Miami in the play-in so that says something. Both the Heat and Knicks are playing torrid basketball. I'm more worried about them than Philly and the Sixers are no slouch either.
Playoffs are TOUGH! Iwas ready to trade Marcus after he turned the ball over in the 4th and blew 2 three pointers but in the end he atoned for his sins like a champion. Whew. Thank you Jaylen!!! You too Jayson.

Post Game prosperity:

Okay call me Colonel Sanders. Call me Popeye. You can even give it a little flair by calling me Chick- Fil- A …. See where I’m headed?

Never mind. Forget all the Tags and just call me a big fat greasy CHICKEN!!

Why? You know why. I told everyone that I was not going to watch this game and I did not. Well, I’m lying kinda. I stayed up through the dark of night and watched a replay of our beloveds victory of those Stankin Hawks!

Way to go C’s!!

Wait, do I really have a right to say that after I copped out and hid looking as scared as a pooch in a thunderstorm? Probably not but I already said it, so there!

Look, I did go to water aerobics class and decided not to stay after school and drown myself. I was that worried, especially after seeing what happened to the “Fear the Deer”Bucks. (Ain’t nobody scared of a deer).

It’s 7pm CDT Thursday evening.

Class dismissed. I took my damn good time going home. Stopped at a car wash, went to Walmart and didn’t buy a damn thing. I just stayed in the lobby staring at all the pictures of missing people.
Yeah, I’m killing as much time as possible.

Cue Chuck Berry: “Riding along in my automobile” on my way to the crib.
Got home and again took a very very long bath. Bath in Bath out and not going anywhere near a television. Killed some more time.

Small talk with the wife who wasn’t listening to a damn thing I had to say but finally turned and said “Will you please take your a$$ upstairs and turn the TV on isn’t there a game tonight?” I just mumble and went upstairs and turned on the TV.
Not really. I fired up Netflix and watched the documentary “Sins of my Mother”.
Only 3 episodes. Killed another 2 hours and I can’t tell you anything about “Sin’s of my Mother” because I wasn’t paying attention. My mind was on the Celtics in Atlanta.
So far so good. I haven’t checked the score on my phone and although I was tempted several times, I refused to peek at the forum to find out what was going on in Atlanta.

It’s now 10:20 CDT still Thursday evening.

Ding! Phone alert.  “Notification The Athletic” !
Oh oh. Game must be over. My fingers start trembling like an off balance washing machine on spin cycle.
Here goes………CELTICS DEFEAT HAWKS 128-120!!!
YES!!!  Just as I predicted: C’s in 6 . Why the hell was I worried? Why did I put myself through a Thursday night torture chamber? Why?? Cuz I was chicken thats why!!

Whewwww a sigh of release.
I grab the IPad and  look through the Game on thread and see Rosalie says she’s taking the night off but will be watching.  At least she watched her beloveds.  Me? Chicken!
,Okay i’lll own it. But never again.
This was one horribly spent Thursday evening.
That torture was way worse than watching a game and biting your nails and sweating like, never mind . Trust me. Don’t try this at home. It’s harmful to your health.
We’re on to Philadelphia!!!

Post Game Pettiness:

This really doesn’t qualify as petty as much as it is just plain imbecilic,asinine, Half-witted and foolish (I’m trying to avoid calling them stupid) typical Atlanta disinterest in Professional Sports.
Oh ye of little faith. Why would they book a Janet Jackson concert knowing that the NBA playoffs would be going on and the Hawks would be playi…..Oh….  On second thought….I understand.

Sing along with me now: ‘Go stupid go stupid go stupid’…:>)

That idiot Mazzulla played Smart down the stretch again.Didn't that sportswriter Robb and some of our brethren suggest that the needed to remove Smart from the starting lineup and bench him down the stretch? Hey, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but several forum members have repeatedly suggested, with no evidence whatsoever, that the coach with all the cute derogatory nicknames wasn't playing Grant Williams because of "something personal." This is the same Joe Mazzulla who passed on a job with the Celtics, with no guarantee that he would get another NBA opprtunity because he had promised a recruit that he would coach him in college. He also went out of his way to praise Grant for his work ethic, and readiness to play when called upon, after the 6th game win.Feel free to thing he's a crappy coach, but presuming that he would bench a guy for reasons not related to on court performance seems , to me, to be an attack on his integrity. We may ,recently, have had a coach with integrity issues, but it wasn't Mazzulla.I wish Ime well, but it's hard to understand how he gets a pass for behavior that the team felt it neccessary to suspend him for, while the guy who had to pick up the pieces is under constant attack.

You forgot to mention that right after he put Smart in he yanked him out, coached him up, then put him back in and Smart became a positive force helping propel the offense. I was impressed by both the specific coaching and that Smart was indeed coachable. As for making up potential motives for Mazzula’s choices seemed more revealing of the state of mind of those making the suggestions than anything else.

BingBang! wrote:You forgot to mention that right after he put Smart in he yanked him out, coached him up, then put him back in and Smart became a positive force helping propel the offense. I was impressed by both the specific coaching and that Smart was indeed coachable. As for making up potential motives for Mazzula’s choices seemed more revealing of the state of mind of those making the suggestions than anything else.

                                                                                                                                                                                     +1

Hi,
That was a nail-biter, for sure.
Celtics did the opposite of they've done in game 5: instead of collapsing in the end of 4th quarter they focused and pushed forward.
It was interesting to see Grant on the floor in the last minutes of the game. I guess a fresh defensive force wasn't what ATL could handle.

to Ktron: please do water aerobics every time Celtics play (at least until they win in the Finals in June)

AK

PS Forgot to remind everyone: 4 down, 12 to go

Tough close out on the road. THAT's how champions perform. Now we're officially invited into the championship mettle conversation with MIA, PHI, GSW, LAL and NYK, but only as newbies.

I liked the way we came out and set the tone early. Unfortunately, almost 100% of the time that wears/levels off and the pendulum swings back to normal. Let's face it. ATL was a tough, wake-me-up out. Good for them. Thank you. Thank ATL. They got us in the mood finally. Let's call them pesky...and now behind us. Good, competitive closeout.

It took until 4 minutes left in the 4th to put ATL out of their misery. Scoreless stretch by them and AH/Smart/JT with timely 3's and it was finally, mercilessly over. Quin Snyder deserves a lot of credit coming in mid-stream like he did.

The odd plays at the end where Trae Young kept racking Marcus with the inbound pass was, while annoying (Marcus will agree), was pure genius. Why hasn't that been thought of before in all the years of basketball? I know ATL only had one TO left and I'm sure there have been a gazillion prior situations like that. Just never seen that before. Of course the end result after all that crapola was throwing the ball to no one out of bounds.

Trae no showing in the 2nd half will/should be transferred to our next round with the Master Magician Disappearing Act known as James Harden. Even if he does come out of his shell, I don't think it is going to be enough. It will be helpful for Coach Joe to bring out the BOS vs. BKN series tapes last year at this time where Durant was forced to take a long look at himself and almost consider himself washed up and ready to retire after his (and conversely our) performance, making him look like a bumbling idiot the whole series. Someone big on PHI will experience the same demise if we come in ready. Take your pick...Embiid? Harden? Harris? Maxey?

This series, despite our dominance during the regular season, will legit/easily go 6-7. And since we were prone to two inexplicable brain farts in the first round against, in the end, inferior competition, we double that this round and we're out against superior competition.

Nothing is guaranteed. Embiid playing with a brace but don't let that fool you. PHI has plenty of motivation to get to ECF at least. And despite my better descriptor (The Project) of the situation in PHI not catching on just yet, they have to get to the ECF at a BAM as anything less at this point would be 3 consecutive strikes in the 2nd Round of the playoffs and that will be the end of everything as we know it in PHI. So make no mistake. PHI has hung their hopes on James "No Show" Harden. He can't dial anymore games or series in. This will be the end. Embiid is going to be Embiid, leg brace and all. But with our defense and depth, someone for PHI on the level of a Kevin Durant is going to get shut down and out by our defense. Here's where Coach Joe is going to plant his flag.

And on our side, for lack of a better term, we have our brain farts. The list is long and not rehashable at this point since we've been harping on them the whole season, so our demise can come from anywhere.

Now is the time for our strengths to show through. And that list is long and not worth rehashing.

It's time to play now. Time to settle things here in the second round. Yes we have a 14-7 historical edge vs. PHI in the playoffs, but that was then, this is now. PHI going to come out like a rabid dog, especially and poetically since Embiid is injured and sporting a knee brace.

I hope ATL woke us up enough for us to limit our brain farts going forward. The heavens have opened up a bit but only if we play like we should and know we can. Sometimes we take gifts with open arms and other times we reject them.

Tonight should be some very interesting close out games out West. Good TV. I'll be watching. We don't start until Monday I think.

db

Jrleftfoot and BingBang…. +1, great points.

Ktron… Happy to hear you got your cardio workout in, happier that you safely got out of the pool and went home. Also, your wife sounds a lot like mine.

First off I want to congratulate those feisty Hawks.  Everybody was saying it was going to be a sweep, or a "Gentleman's Sweep" (i.e. 5 games) and they took it to 6 and were still within reach of coming back to Boston for game 7 with just a few minutes left.  It was tied at 113 with < 4 minutes left.  We went on a 15-7 run in crunch time to put it away.




Jaylen talks here about why the Hawk series was tough.  He says "there's execution, there's 'xs-and-os', and then there's fight.  Atlanta fought".  Ganas.  Fire in the belly.  I gotta have this, tell me what I have to do to get it.  Kudos to the Hawks for having ganas and to our guys for matching theirs.




Our body language for the first half of the game was just flat out awful.  I found this to be of concern, I questioned if that was going to translate into even more confidence for the Hawks and a demoralization of the Celtics, but odd too.  We scored 30+ in every quarter, very even scoring.  I guess it was because the Hawks shot 33+ points in the first 3 quarters.  4th quarter, though, they only scored 20 as Trae Young's shots stopped falling.

Our perimeter defense stunk most of the game.  Trae was coming off of high picks 30' out and penetrating the paint.  At that point the baseline defender is screwed.  If he steps up to challenge Trae his man gets a lob dunk.  Watch that short video above showing the last few minutes of the game and you'll see our perimeter defenders stepping up to challenge the ball on the picks and that made the difference. In today's NBA, where everybody can shoot from range, any good defense must start beyond the arc, and when the opposing ball handler can shoot from 30' like Trae Young the defense must start at 30'.

Marcus Smart with 7 of the remaining 15 points from 113 to our final total of 128.  Joe singled out Smart for his play in his post-game presser.  Whatever brain farts he had in the final minutes of game 5 were redeemed in the final minutes of game 6.  Whatever deficits Smart might have he has an abundant supply of ganas.

I wasn't feeling very good about this game until those final minutes, though.  Jaylen started out 3-10 and 2 turnovers.  He was 7-15 at the half, a 4-5 run, but early on he was not helpful.  He, along with Smart and Derrick, where trying to slow down Trae, who had 18 in the 1st quarter and 25 at the half.  Jaylen had a BIG block on Dejounte Murray with 2 1/2 left and us up 119-113.  Jayson was not as cold as Jaylen to start but he didn't do much either.  He was 2-6 and 1-4 from 3 in the 1st quarter and my brain started spasming from the prospect of another 1-10 night from 3.  In the end they ended up a combined 24-45, 10-18 from 3, 62 points, 19 rebounds, 9 assists and only Jaylen's early 2 turnovers, 3 blocks.  Jayson had 30 points on 11-20, 14 rebounds, 7 assists and ZERO turnovers and 2 blocks.  That's a boxscore.

Al stunk for most of the game but hit a BIG clutch corner 3 in crunch time.  It's ironic that the Hawks were finally shot down by Atlanta homie Jaylen Brown, long-time Hawk Al Horford and the player everybody loves to hate (but wants on their team) Marcus Smart.

For most of the game their bench was killing us.  Their bench scored 23 points at the half while ours scored 14.  All of their bench players had positive +/- at the half and all of ours had negative ones, but by the end of the game our bench had pulled into positive territory or almost.  If Bogie or Saddiq Bey become available during the offseason I'd be interested in finding out what Atlanta wants for them.  Payton, and maybe Grant, will be available for us.  Bogie is a UFA, and he made $18M/year for the last couple years, so his demands might be too rich for us.  He's an almost 31 year old bench player now and isn't worth $18M anymore.  Bey will be in his last contract year next year, $4.5M, and will be RFA after that.  That's doable.  Payton plus picks?  The Hawk starters, however, were all minuses from the first quarter on.  

Only 7 turnovers all game for us, two of those were Jaylen's.  What's truly excellent, and I'll give Joe some credit for this, we had 4 in the first quarter (2 of those were Jaylen's) and only 3 in the remaining 36 minutes of play.  That's how you win.  You score at a 50% clip and only turn the ball over 3X in 3 quarters.

22 ftas vs 17 for us.  Hawk fans can't bitch about not getting to the line (although I'm sure they will anyway).  It's not the refs' faults they hit 17 of 22 and we hit 16 of 17, effectively wiping out the edge the refs gave them.

5 steals for them and only 7 turnovers for us equals only 12 changes of possession that weren't due to missed shots.  That's really, really good.  That's taking care of the ball.  We had 7 steals and they had 10 turnovers, so 17 for them.

18 fast break points for us vs 4 for them.  Quinn Snyder, who is an offense-oriented coach, must be dying this morning from this.

Our biggest lead was 10, their largest was 7.  This was a close one throughout.  As I said on the Game On! thread the game was giving me agita.  Sorry, I like easy no-stress blow outs.  I'd prefer all the close games to come in the preseason when the results don't matter.

As has been pointed out, 4 down and 12 to go.  There's something wrong with the way the playoffs are run when the #2 and #3 teams face each other in the Conference Semi-Finals while the #5 and #8 face each other.  The Conference Finals should be the best of the best and, with this bracketing, one of the top regular season teams will be eliminated and a team that barely made the playoffs gets to compete for the Finals.  We should be facing Miami (as much as I fear Jimmy Butler), the lower seed between them and NY, and Philly should face the higher seed.

I'll take that up with Adam Silver the next time I talk to him.

https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore/_/gameId/401541244


Bob


.

NYCelt wrote:Jrleftfoot and BingBang…. +1, great points.

Ktron… Happy to hear you got your cardio workout in, happier that you safely got out of the pool and went home. Also, your wife sounds a lot like mine.

NY,
Breaking news: You’re trending!
I saw this on another thread on another site and immediately thought about you.
I know you would appreciate it.
:-)

Close out game 6 was a nip and tuck battle.

I believe there were 22 lead changes.  I was hoping for some separation but the Celtics would need to ramp up things on the defensive side.  They needed to hit the turbo change switch and that is exactly what they did.
 
The Celtics finished this game off when JB drained a deep 3 to tie things up at 113-113 with 4:50 remaining.  The cumulative run produced an 18-7 advantage with contributions coming from Smart, Horford and Tatum all of whom knocked down big time 3 pointers.  The defense was ferocious during this game defining run.
 
The Celtics were expected to win this series even though the feisty Hawks managed to extend it to 6 games.

I think JB was the MVP of this series.  Even with 2 subpar offensive games he still averaged 26.7 PPG and shot a whopping 54.1% from the field and 51.5% from deep.  This series was a team win as we witnessed significant contributions up and down the roster.

The point differential during this series was 5.4 in favor of the Celtics.

Hats off to the Hawks who put up a damn good fight.

Thanks to the Bucks meltdown, the Celtics will have the home court advantage against every opponent.

The Celtics will have 4 days off to rest and prepare for the Sixers.

Great win. Celtics played hard the whole game. That is a talented team. It is hard to win in the playoffs and on the road. One hot player can make a big difference. We played consistent D on Young and he finally cooled off. Actually, I think we wore him down. Smart, Jaylen and D White all guarded him tough and eventually he tired out.

Everyone stepped up,

1) What can you say about Marcus, he plated a helleva game from start to finish. He made big play after big play down the stretch.

2) Jaylen was just subpurb. Made so many big shots and the block on Young was awesome.

3) We were all on JT after the last game and he comes through with a complete game. Clutch shots and how about those 14 rebounds?

4) Al is just a pros pro. Hit the biggest shot of the game, but also played unbelievable defense.

Its the Sixers now. Gonna be tough, but I think we are the better team. Embiid is a beast. I think we are going to play him straight up with just a few double teams.

Trae Young and the whole Hawks team is better than I thought. White and Murray is a very tough backcourt to defend. They had a lot of moments where they shredded our vaunted defense that I didn’t expect. We had to fight to fight so hard and earn it after blowing game 5’s lead. 3 days off should be perfect to get us right for Sixers.

With all the speculation about whether Embiid will show or not Monday (he'll be there, don't worry), let's not fall for the trap that caused us to lose G5 vs. ATL. We all thought that with Murray out for acting like an idiot (you can also include Draymond Green), one of ATL's major scorers, that G5 would be a cakewalk. Well, clearly it was for about 42 minutes and then the wheels came off.

PHI will be fine no matter who's on the floor. Championship teams don't care who's out there. All they know is they will drive right through you and over you to win. That's how we need to come out Monday. If we're just happy to be there, that's what all the losers say, and our we will get what we paid for.

Expect a split for the first two game as these teams are too good for home court to win out the whole series, hope for 2-0. If PHI is going to make a move, it will be early ala G1 to set the tone. Remember, they have to. We can and have been more than generous to let teams walk all over us at the most inopportune times and then mysteriously bounce back a game later. Very risky at this stage. This can't be one of those times.

We can win and have won in PHI. No panic. Did PHI win in BOS this year? Expect to have to win twice in PHI and we won't be disappointed.

Should be interesting to say the least. IMHBAO, this series is the Finals with so much on the line for PHI and the current status of its organization going forward.

Let's play ball!!

db

The trust factor was in full effect and no better example could be made than Marcus Smart. When he checked back into the game late in the QTR he missed a wide open 3 from the right side and then he had another wide open look from the same area and sort of fumbled a bit but still got off the 3 point attempts which also missed.

That certainly did not deter the Celtics from going to him when he got open again. The play had JB driving the ball and kicking it out to Marcus on the left side this time and Marcus had time to check the wind and measure the distance before he drained a big 3. Next he drives the ball deep and kicks a perfect pass out to AH who drains his opportunity as well. And then Marcus makes the pass, no pass layup.

His scoring efficiency was well above his season averages. The Hawks gambled and left him wide open way too many times and he made them pay.

16.7 PPG while shooting 49.3 % from the field and 38.5% from deep on 6.5 attempt.

Ktron wrote:

NYCelt wrote:Jrleftfoot and BingBang…. +1, great points.

Ktron… Happy to hear you got your cardio workout in, happier that you safely got out of the pool and went home. Also, your wife sounds a lot like mine.

NY,
Breaking news: You’re trending!
I saw this on another thread on another site and immediately thought about you.
I know you would appreciate it.
:-)

Love it!

Thanks for posting that, Ktron

Bob


.

So little is said about how important Al was in this final few minutes when The Celtics finally pulled away and good this game. I did not understand, for the life of me, why he played so many minutes, but God knows they needed him. This may nave looked like a J’s big time win, but in my eyes, it was a team win. Al, Smart, both came on when it counted. Broaden was good in spurts, at least Grant got some minutes. To say this was a nail biter is to put it mildly, but the end result was rewarding.

Do not pay attention to that gibberish coming out of Doc Rivers, he is playing his usual game. Embid will be there Monday night, I have no doubt. And the nail biting will start again.

NYCelt, you forgot to mention that the 60 points would come from 2 J’s not one!!

Jaylen: "You gotta hoop."
...And hoop they did indeed.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:

NYCelt, you forgot to mention that the 60 points would come from 2 J’s not one!!

You’re right, Rosalie. I missed that one.

I’ll try again next round!