Respect and Romance

Yesterday I was reading the text of a chat session that Boston homer Bill Simmons conducted where he attacked Celtics coach Doc Rivers like he was rental clown or a team mascot. He ranted and raved about defensive sets and who was in the game. The one thing that I took away from the chat was that in Bill Simmons mind if the Celtics lose then it has to be the coach's fault. I found this initially insulting as a Hawks fan until I read one small line in response to a question. Long and short of it is that he indicated that the Hawks earned his respect by giving the Celtics a real challenge in this series. The Hawks earning someone's respect? Really? I needed to pick myself off my kitchen floor full of Skittles and old cat food after I read this.

As I was watching the first quarter of Game 6 in Atlanta between the Celtics and the Hawks I was preparing for this entry. I was starting to swallow a few of the magic blue pills and started to play with the microwave oven with a live rooster. I was convinced that it was all over. I was convinced that the Celtics were going to win. They were getting all the calls. They were getting the good shots. They were killing the Hawks in the paint, on the court, at the scorers table, and they were also kicking their dog, too. It was all going the Celtics way. I made mention of the officiating going the Celtics way as I had predicted so they would make it to the Finals to my Siberian ice queen and she retorted that "You're only saying that because Atlanta is playing." OK, true...but...FALSE. The officials want the Celtics in the Finals against the Lakers. David Stern (the Tony Soprano of the NBA) wants it to happen along with the evil TV executives that made our lives miserable by allowing the writers strike to occur. I was convinced that this game just had to go the Celtics way. David Stern was not going to allow the Celtics to lose before the FInals. He would make sure of it by having anyone killed in a wood chipper who got in the way.

Boston pulled out by a dozen points at the end of the first quarter. However, the Celts could not finish the Hawks off. Championship teams make the kill shot when it becomes available. The Celtics had the kill shot in their sights...and they missed. The calls stopped going all their way. They started to try to intimidate the Hawks again and it backfired. It backfired so badly that they kept putting the Hawks on the free throw line. I have never seen as many people go to a line since Lindsey Lohan's last cocaine party featuring Uma Thurman, George Takei, and the Bush twins. They kept the Hawks in the game. They allowed the fans to stay alive (which is hard to do in Atlanta). They allowed the Hawks to chip away slowly at the lead.

The Celtics went into half-time up by one point. They could have been up by twenty. Atlanta was still very much alive. They were still swinging away. However, I still felt that the Celtics all around better players would eventually come through. I was prepared to write that the Hawks should not hang their heads. That they gave it everything they had and they were just beaten by a better team. That they have the nucleus of a better team...next year (only if the insane ownership group doesn't scuttle the Hawks like they did to the Thrashers after their play-off run. The owners are like drunk bachelor party goers at the end of the night trying to find the last hooker under the bridge...lost, hopeless, desperate, and without judgment).

Joe Johnson was double teamed all game long. The Celtics were not going to allow the Hawks best player to kill them as he did in Game 4. That would have been the move that I would have made if I were coaching against them. Horford was being locked down. Josh Smith was in foul trouble. Bibby was just old. It made sense. However, nothing in this series has made any sense so far. Johnson played like the star player most teams wish for and don't have. Why? Because instead of continuing to take ill-advised shots over the double team he found the open player no matter who it was. If JJ did not have the open shot 90% of the time he found the player that did. Marvin Williams had numerous open shots in the second half and he hit nearly all of them until he hurt his knee deep into the fourth quarter. The Celtics and Hawks slugged it out almost literally in the third quarter. Each team shot 52% from the field for the third quarter. Boston got 32 points. Atlanta got 30.

Going into the fourth quarter it was turning into a prize fight that was going to the last round where the underdog by 400 to 1 was still hanging around against the champ. The young athletic and moody Hawks squad against the immensely better strong and supposedly even tempered champion. My feeling about the game had changed dramatically from feeling like the Hawks couldn't win to that they could win. This feeling was like taking at least 40 Ritalin pills all at once. Or is 50? I don't know.

Then the impossible happened. Again. The Celtics could not hit a shot for a five minute stretch in the fourth quarter. The Hawks were getting the rebounds. The Hawks took their first least with eleven minutes to go. That lead managed to get up to eight after a 10-0 run over a five minute span. Coach Woodson inexplicably decided to run a prevent offense trying to run the shot clock down to around, let's say....zero and having the player take some crazy jump shot. Despite this horrible strategy (Even a complete idiot like me knows that the Hawks play better offense when the pace is a higher tempo in transition) it did not matter. The Celtics lost their composure at a key moment. It is impossible to comprehend that a veteran talented team would lose their nerve during the last minutes of the fourth quarter. Just impossible. Van Gundy was stating on air that the Hawks were playing like the veteran team. It was true. They were. The Celtics sent the Hawks to the free throw line for 47 shots. Championship teams don't come up short by twenty plus free throws in a key play-off game. Pierce got his sixth foul on an iffy call (David Stern will have this guy killed. Trust me) and that was it. The Celtics lost control and handed the game mentally to Atlanta.

The Hawks during the last two minutes tried their hardest to give the game up physically by not getting key rebounds when the Celtics kept erratically shooting. I was about to throw my daughter's cell phone into the TV as I was watching the Hawks not get the rebounds and not get the loose balls. But even that did not matter.

Why?

Because someone else got off the kill shot.

JJ had the ball as the clock was reaching the 1:15 mark. The shot clock was slipping into the single digits. He had the ball when it counted and as my Ritalin riddled brain was about to scream out "DOOOOO SOOOMMMETHHHINNGGG NOOOOWWWWW!!!!" JJ shot a three point shot with two seconds on the shot clock. Typically, as an Atlanta fan I am used to this shot hitting the rim and bouncing into the stands. Instead, it went through the net. JJ hit the kill shot. Like the veteran All-Star that he is. He hit the kill shot.

Moments later JJ stood at the free throw line and sank two key three throws. Bibby tried his hardest to choke the game away with eight seconds left, but it did not matter because the Hawks had out worked and out played the Celtics when it mattered the most. And again shocked the world.

The Atlanta Hawks won Game 6 against a 66-win Celtics squad by a score of 103-100. They again earned the respect of not only from Bill Simmons, but their own fans and a national ESPN audience. That is a ton more respect then the team had when the series started. They proved to themselves and to the basketball world that Atlanta does have a professional basketball team. Not only a team, but a play-off team that has now taken three games in a series with the team with the best regular season record.

No matter what happens in Game 7 in Boston I have renewed my romance with my team. I am fearful that they will break my heart again (like a 1000 times before with my Atlanta based teams), but tonight it does not matter because I have had a drunken romp for old times sake, which is more than what I am getting from my Siberian ice queen.