In any sporting competition, the balance of responsibility between the winner and the loser will always be different.
The Boston Celtics lost Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals more than the Los Angeles Lakers won it. The Miami Heat lost the 2011 NBA Finals more than the Dallas Mavericks won it… and Dallas lost the 2006 Finals more than Miami won it.
Finals that were won by the winner more than lost by the loser: last year’s Spurs-Heat Finals; the Lakers over the Orlando Magic in 2009; and the Detroit Pistons over the Lakers in 2004, to name a few examples.
Sometimes, it’s what the winner does; other times, a series — or a football game, or a tennis match — is defined by what the loser does or fails to do. One must always be open to the reality of what happens, to the organic nature of events as they unfold. Every competition will acquire its own balance.
Assessments should not be seen as insults when a series is lost more than won; they also shouldn’t be seen as instances of fanboyish hyperbole when a series is won more than lost.
Can we agree, then, that the Eastern Conference semifinal series between the Atlanta Hawks and the Washington Wizards was lost by the Wizards more than it was won by the Hawks?
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In relationship to the comments above, let’s not allow that verdict to come across as a slap at the Hawks. Atlanta — like Golden State, simply on a smaller and less impressive scale — persevered as a top seed in the second round of the playoffs, bouncing back after an ugly Game 3 loss on the road. (Yes, yes, Atlanta made a furious comeback in that contest, unlike the Warriors. The game was still ugly, though.)
Atlanta won three straight games to close out this series, winning two playoff series in the same year for the first time in Atlanta Hawks history. (The St. Louis Hawks won at least two playoff series in 1958.) This team showed a lot of guts, and coach Mike Budenholzer has validated his Coach of the Year award. Al Horford and Jeff Teague are the leaders of this team, and they acted like it in Games 4 (Teague), 5 (Horford) and 6 (both men). There’s a lot to praise about these Hawks, without question.
Yet, it can be said that this flawed series was more the product of the loser’s deficiencies than the winner’s strengths. Of this, there should be little doubt, but even though the point seems obvious, it’s worth underscoring to affirm the central thesis here: Sporting competitions can be lost more than won.
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In Game 6, the Atlanta Hawks committed more turnovers (15) than they made foul shots (14). They made under 30 percent of their three-point shots (8 of 27). Kyle Korver hit only one shot for the second straight game in this series, failing to score as many as seven points for the fourth consecutive game against the Wizards. The Hawks depended on their bench and the balance it provided in the course of winning 60 regular-season games. In Game 6, that bench hit just 5 of 20 field goals and was outscored by 17 points, 31-14.
Atlanta won… because Washington lost. Atlanta won… because someone had to advance to the Eastern Conference finals. There was no way to put the San Antonio Spurs (an Eastern Conference team in the late 1970s, by the way) into the East Finals as a replacement. The Wizards or Hawks had to occupy one of the last four spots in the NBA playoffs.
Atlanta advanced… because Washington played a little bit worse in this series, and in Game 6.
Marcin Gortat was bad for Washington in Game 5, but in Game 6, his feeble two-point performance had a good reason behind it: food poisoning. Fine — that’s not something the Wizards could have controlled. However, Nene Hilario and Paul Pierce needed to pick up the slack — Nene in particular, since Pierce had done a lot of heavy lifting for this team in the first five games of the series.
Instead of being the rock Washington needed him to be, Nene scored just five points and was beaten on pick-and-roll defense, especially in the fourth quarter. He was toasted on a bucket by DeMarre Carroll which gave Atlanta a 93-89 lead with 30 seconds left, ultimately the basket which made the difference.
How bad were the Wizards in Game 6? Other than Bradley Beal (11 of 24 field goals) and Kevin Seraphin (6 of 11), Washington made just 17 field goals in 58 tries, under 30 percent. Beal hit 3 of 8 triples for the Wizards; the rest of his teammates went just 1 of 10 from long distance. Drew Gooden joined Nene in being a largely ineffective presence on the floor. Ramon Sessions also lost the magic which briefly appeared in John Wall’s absence. Wall, for his part, competed admirably, but with his busted hand, his already-balky shooting was not in a position to improve (7 of 21 field goals in Game 6).
The effort was there for the Wizards; the performance wasn’t.
Yet, with all these details having been mentioned, they don’t quite get to the heart of why this series was lost more than won. That’s next:
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In this story on Game 6, Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided some revealing quotes from various members of the Hawks on the game’s final play, the tying three-pointer by Paul Pierce which was waved off by a replay review.
DeMarre Carroll had this to say:
“John Wall handed it off, and I chased him. By the time I turned around I saw Paul Pierce shooting the ball, and I was about to cry. I said, ‘Not again.’ It went through, but the basketball gods were on our side. They let us get through this one.”
That sounds like a player who felt he helped put his team in a bad situation. It also sounds like a player who felt that a foul should have been committed before Pierce got a free shooting hand (albeit for an off-balance look).
Here’s Jeff Teague, as reported by Vivlamore:
“I almost had a heart attack, man. (Pierce) just won’t give up. He keeps fighting. He’s a great player. He makes big-time shots. When I saw him get the ball I said, ‘He’s going to make it.’ And he did. Luckily, the time ran out.”
Keep in mind that the Hawks, leading by two in the final 10 seconds of Game 5, allowed Pierce to get a free shooting hand for a go-ahead triple. Sure, the Wizards committed a moving screen on the play, but the Hawks still should have been guarding the arc, and they still flubbed that defensive sequence.
In this Game 6 sequence, Washington players were dribbling with their heads down — not squared up to the rim — on multiple occasions in the final six seconds. Atlanta had multiple chances to foul without conceding three foul shots to the Wizards. The Hawks are lucky that Pierce happened to release the ball a hair after the clock expired. In a regular-season context, Atlanta’s defense was solid, but in a Game 6 pressure-cooker, there was no place for failing to foul inside the three-second mark when the Hawks had every chance to prevent Pierce from potentially tying the game.
The relief and anxiety expressed by Carroll and Teague show that Atlanta didn’t approach that final possession as well as it should have. The Hawks got away with it.
The Hawks got away from the Eastern Conference semifinals with a ticket to the Eastern Conference finals… because their opponent managed to be a little bit worse in a series which — aside from Game 4 — was defined more by failures than successes.
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Here’s the brief but important postscript, one which will require and receive elaboration in the coming days:
If Atlanta could survive a tough series when it was far from its best, the Hawks can now hope that they’ll be able to play a more liberated brand of ball against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East finals. If they — particularly Kyle Korver — can shoot the ball the way they did in the regular season, the Hawks won’t remember how ugly the Wizards series was. They’ll instead remember this series as the grow-up moment which transformed them into an even tougher and more dependable ballclub. That’s Atlanta’s great hope over the next two weeks.
