Not every outcome of a game has to have some everlasting, mythic, and truly meaningful story to come out of it. Sometimes it is what it is, and what that can be is what exactly it was — one result of one specific game.
People are going to ask the question, though: What does Washington’s upset over Atlanta mean? Well, why does it have to mean anything? Can’t it just be a victory by one good team over another?
We already know the answer to that question. Instead of pointing to more obvious reasons — such as Atlanta’s uncharacteristically bad shooting that was probably due to weak legs — we want definitive answers, or at least some sort of profound theories as to what it means for the entire series.
That’s fine. Seeking reasons for a supposedly (and debatably) lesser team winning actually seems rather logical. It has to mean something, right? I suppose if you think Randy Wittman now being the owner of four straight Game 1 playoff wins should mark him as some kind of, literal, coaching wizard, then sure.
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Game 1 itself was weird.
For much of it, the Hawks were very much in control. After an impressive first quarter that saw Atlanta score 37 points, there was very little reason to be concerned if you were a fan of the one-seed. Seriously, DeMarre Carroll had 21 first-half points, and that should probably spell doom for Atlanta’s opponent. Yet, obviously, it didn’t.
It was all gravy for the Hawks until it became rather noticeable that Atlanta players were struggling to do what they normally do well — hit open shots. This was particularly true for Kyle Korver, who was 5 of 15 from the field, and Al Horford, who also shot a poor 7 of 19.
None of that should take a single thing away from Washington. The Wizards did what they wanted to do, and as quickly as possible: steal a game in Atlanta. By doing so in Game 1 of the semifinals, the Wizards are clearly ahead of the strategy curve.
There is something to be said about the fresh legs theory going around, however. Washington had an entire week off, while the Hawks had 36 hours. The latter’s 25-percent shooting over the last two quarters of the game can be explained away by such an idea.
Regardless if that is actually the reason, Washington still deserves a bunch of credit.
This was not an easy game for the Wizards. John Wall appeared to have injured his left wrist but played through it; Bradley Beal left the game after hurting his ankle with 8:08 remaining in the game; and Nene got into such severe early foul trouble that he managed to be on the court for only 18 minutes.
While it was Wall who helped put this game to bed in its latter portions, oddly enough it was actually Otto Porter who may have been the catalyst to keep it close enough to matter. During the first quarter, while Atlanta was bombarding Washington with buckets, it was the much maligned former Georgetown player who managed to keep the game respectable by hitting some shots for the Wizards.
Porter’s importance during this game, even if just in stretches, is yet another reason why we do not need to dig deep to look for an overarching meaning to this game. More or less (I say less, for what it is worth) the odds of Porter being that vital to Wizards shouldn’t seem like a worthy talking point going forward.
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On the mean streets of the world-wide interwebs, “Clickbait” is as dangerous a thing as you will find. We are going to come across a lot of it over the next hours, or at least before Game 2 begins. People are going to want to find a giant reason to take something away from this game, then parlay that into some diabolical and very ignorant (most likely slideshow) article about Washington being the better team.
That has as much to do with the Wizards winning Game 1 as it does with people’s obsessive desire to expose the Hawks as “frauds”… or whatever it is they are doing while avoiding giving them credit for winning lots of basketball games.
Here is the deal: I get it. Many think the Hawks are frauds because they got zombified by the Brooklyn Nets and, well, it is hard to believe in the Hawks because they are the Hawks. None of that should matter, though.
What should matter is the idea that they probably had their worst shooting game of the series and it just so happened to be in the opener. All of that could very simply be explained away by having game-playing jet lag (play lag?). It could also just be a “bad game.” Teams tend to have them once in awhile, and why there’s never been an 82-0 NBA team.
No matter the predicted winner, no one had either team sweeping the other in this series. The supposed underdog upset a team no one wants to believe in, but that doesn’t mean there needs to be anything taken from this game other than the outcome and the fact that Washington is up in the series, 1-0.
Sorry, super-insightful game watchers and clickbait aficionados. You’d like to draw a grand meaning from Game 1 of Wizards-Hawks, but you’ll just have to let this series run its course — at least for two more games if not five or six.
