When Police are tackling you, you have to cooperate. But cops should explain why they are tackling you and give some assurance. Now I don't really know what happened, all I know is that Thabo Sefolosha was injured and was out for the rest of the playoffs.
After the incident, the Hawks just lost confidence. They had no bench player who had major playoff experience. Take a look at this guy.
1 Steals per game (playoffs career)
4.6 PPG (playoff career)
78 Playoff games
67 Playoff starts
As you can see, this is a great veteran to have in the playoffs. After he was injured, the Hawks just didn't look like the Hawks. They haven't shot well, they haven't played well, they haven't been the Hawks. Korver Hasn't even been Korver as the Hawks were taken out of rhythm. They could barley beat the Wizards. Now they are struggling against the Cavaliers. I think the main problem is the Hawks defense. If they had Sefolosha, they would be a much better defensively. Thabo is a great defensive player and would be suited to play help defense and the team would be so much better.
I don't know. I just think that the absence of Sefolosha just threw the Hawks off. They can't even beat the Cavs without Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. I think if they had Thabo, they would be so much better right now. Just think, this was all because of the NYPD. They are supposed to help people, but they hurt the Hawks.
This was a really weird game. The Hawks build up a lead. Then the Cavs catch up. J.R. Smith knocks down a bunch of shots. The Hawks fall way behind. DaMarre Carroll gets injured. Then the Hawks fall behind a lot but catch up a little. The Cavs ended up winning in the end. Really odd game and a lot happened. Let's take a look.
1st Quarter: The Hawks played great in the first quarter. They had a 26-20 lead at the end of the first quarter. They limited LeBron to just 1-3 shooting and he had just 2 points. At that point though, the Cavs lead the rebound advantage 15-6. Jeff Teague had 9 points in the quarter. Kyrie Irving had 2 threes and Tristan Thompson and Timofey Mozgov had a combined total of 11 rebounds.
2nd Quarter: This quarter was a little different. By the end of the quarter the game was tied and the Cavs had scored 31 points in the quarter. LeBron shot 7-9 in that quarter and had 14 points. J.R. Smith had 3 threes in the quarter and shot only 4. Only 4 Cavs players scored in this quarter. Matthew Dellavedova missed all 4 shots he took including 3 three pointers. Jeff Teague had 8 points in the quarter. Kyle Korver didn't even take a shot as he was the only one that didn't score on the Hawks that quarter. The Hawks had a total of 5 turnovers in that quarter.
3rd Quarter: In this quarter, the Hawks only made 4 shots. 4 shots! They shot 23% from the floor. What saved them? Paul Millsap's free throws of course. He was 5-6 from the free throw line. The team was 7-8. The Hawks were outscored 23-16 in that quarter. The Hawks also had 5 turnover in the quarter again. They did do a better job on LeBron as he had shot just 1-5 in the quarter but LeBron shot 4-4 from the free throw line. J.R. Smith had 8 points in that quarter.
4th Quarter: Now this was just a disaster for the Hawks. DeMarre Carroll ended up getting injured. Then Paul Millsap was just getting sick of LeBron and could not guard him. Millsap ended up getting a technical for arguing. The Hawks only made 1-8 from the 3 point line in the quarter. And J.R. Smith hit 3 threes in the quarter. Again, only 4 Cavs players scored in that quarter. LeBron had 9 points. The Hawks ended up loosing the game.
The Hawks just have to play LeBron better. I think the main thing is just that they have to get Kyle Korver involved in the game more. Also, they can't have 10 turnovers in 2 consecutive quarters. That kills them. They also just need to shoot better. They need Korver to just take shots. The Hawks can't be shooting 4-23 from 3 point range. Hopefully Carroll recovers fast and the Hawks can have a better game.
John Wall was out. There was really no leader for the Wizards. The Hawks really did take control of the game. Let's take a look at what the Wizards need to improve on as they go back home.
The Wizards need John Wall. Simple as that. This guy averages over 10 assists per game. He runs the offense. He is like a Ricky Rubio that can score better. When he is on the floor, everyone plays so much better. Take a look at this, the Wizards took more contested shots than uncontested shots. That is a sign of lack of ball movement. Next, Nene and Gortat only had a combined 12 points. Wall's ability to get it low to the posts is better than anyone else in the league. Wall is like Chris Paul dishing to DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin or Rubio dishing to Kevin Love or Pekovic (throwback to last year). When you take away Chris Paul and Ricky Rubio, what do you have, 2 bigs having to try really hard just to touch the ball. What did they do great of? Ramon Sessions played great. He had a great second half. Paul Pierce shot great from the three point line. In fact the whole team shot 54.5% from deep, which is very impressive for a team like the Wizards. Last, they contained Jeff Teague to only 9 points.
The Hawks played a great overall game. They had 10 turnovers but made them all up with 10 steals. Everybody went for every loose ball and played their hardest. They had great ball movement and wanted to get everyone involved. One thing they could do better is get Kyle Korver some more touches. This guy only had 14 points off of only 40 touches. He needs the ball more. His usage was the lowest on his team at 13.2%! That is unacceptable. Other than that they look like they are in great shape for the next game as long as they play the same in game 3.
Wow, this was a crucial game. The Hawks could have carried momentum back home with a lead in the series. Then Deron Williams came. Out of nowhere. Let's start off with the Nets.
Deron Williams scored in single digits and shot horrible from the field in the first three games. Last night he scored 35 points and 7-11 from 3-point range. He also had 7 assists and 3 steals. Good for Williams. This is what I said that needed to happen for the Nets to win. Deron Williams needed to produce. They could use a little more from the bench. It seems like every night that their bench does absolutely nothing. Other than that, they are doing better than anyone would expect and hopefully can keep rolling.
The Hawks played pretty good. One thing I want to point out. Korver shot 13 threes tonight and only made 4. Why doesn't he shoot 13 when he's making them. He shoots more when he is missing. It makes me so upset. Another thing is that they need to get a person the ball more when they are making shots. I like the whole "sharing" thing but there needs to be a time when someone just needs to get the ball and make something happen. They needed more plays for Carroll. He shot 8-15 from the field and 4-5 form 3 point range. He ended the game with 20 points. He needs to end with 28 in that game. Last, they just need to limit the turnovers. Let's look at the good though. They surprisingly out-rebounded the Nets by 55-40 rebounds. That's a big difference. The Hawks just need to make some minor adjustments. If they can do that, they shouldn't have any trouble winning.
This was a great game. Both teams I thought played pretty good. It's hard to beat the Hawks though. They play good overall basketball. This was a game where so many players had great games. Let's take a look at the Hawks first.
The Hawks were great. Not to mention, they have just shown something that they had never shown before. Trying to get someone the ball. Now, I'm not talking about "give the ball to LeBron and watch what he does." I'm talking about, this guy is making shots, he will draw attention when we give him the ball, which will give us good shots. Lets give Korver the ball more. Korver ended the game with 21 points and 5-11 from 3-point range. That is really good. If they are to make it to the finals, they need someone they can give the ball to and count on to make a shot or play. That guy in this game was Korver. Now, it wasn't like Korver was the only one getting the ball. Everyone was scoring, that's Hawks basketball. They just seemed a little more apt to get it to a single person.
The Nets need to change a little bit. In this game, the scoring was even all around for their team. Which is what you want to see from the Nets. The biggest problem was turnovers. Young had 4 and Jack had 5. The whole team had 17. That needs to go down. The second thing is free throw percentage. The Hawks and Nets took the same amount of free throws but the Nets made 15-22 Free throws. The Hawks made 21-22. That is a 6 point difference. If the Nets made the same amount as the Hawks, the final score would be 99-98. But the outcome would be different. The Nets would have a chance to tie and play the foul game if it were that close. But it wasn't that close because the Nets didn't make their free throws and the Hawks did.
This is going to be though for the Nets. They don't play that well at home and I don't think they can win that much against the Hawks on the road. It's going to be tough for the Nets. I would like to see them prove me wrong though.
