Hawks close out Wizards in Game 6, advance to first Eastern Conference finals
Paul Pierce came a few nanoseconds from delaying, or outright stealing, history, and leaving DeMarre Carroll in tears in the process. The late-game terror of the Eastern Conference during this playoff run hit what would have been his third 3-pointer under the 10-second mark against the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks, initially forcing overtime with a possible Game 7 on the line, before an official review confirmed the ball was still in the veteran's hands when the buzzer sounded.
Once again, it was a series that was as much about trading haymakers as it was alternating disappoint. And Carroll & Co. experienced the full range of emotions while watching the future Hall of Famer knock down yet another improbable gut-punch.
"I was about to cry. I said, 'Not again,'" Carroll said. "It went through, but the basketball gods were on our side. They let us get through this one."
The final horn preserved a 94-91 win for the Hawks, who advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in franchise history. The last time the Hawks were one series away from the NBA Finals was 1970, when they reached the league's divisional finals, and the last time they reached the championship round the team called St. Louis home.
This series was guaranteed to provide history -- Washington was chasing a similar playoff drought -- but in the end, despite Pierce's heroics, Bradley Beal's breakout performance and John Wall's All-NBA talent showing through with a fractured left hand, the East's top seed refused to be denied.
"It's something that we can take a lot of pride in," Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said of his team's historic season, which also includes a franchise record with 60 regular-season wins. "There's been a lot of great work put in all year and to see it carry over to the playoffs and for our players to go out and execute and make enough plays and find a way to win a game and put us in the Eastern Conference Finals -- I think for the organization, for the city, it's something everybody takes a lot of pride in. Our group takes pride in it, too. But we're more in the moment."
Game 6 provided a new storyline, one different from the previous two games with Wall on the court.
For the better part of Games 1 and 5, the Wizards, behind their All-Star point guard Wall, were the better team. The Hawks lost home-court advantage in Game 1 and needed a furious comeback in the final six minutes of Game 5 to erase a substantial fourth-quarter deficit -- sealed by the Herculean effort of Al Horford on a game-winning rebound-putback with one second remaining.
The series finale was a direct inverse of Game 5: The Hawks controlled the game, but it was the Wizards who made a late push, first taking an 88-87 lead before re-tying the game at 89-89 with one minute remaining. Things had completely fallen apart for Atlanta. The double-digit lead was gone. The offense was stagnant, forcing and missing shots. Turnovers triggered easy fast-break points. Beal caught fire offensively. So with a devastating collapse, franchise history and a potential Game 7 hanging in the balance, how did Atlanta respond?
It reverted back to its identity.
When Wall missed a second free throw with about one minute left in a tie game -- one of many late-game miscues the Wizards will look back on with regret this offseason -- Budenholzer called timeout. The initial play called for point guard Jeff Teague and Horford to run a pick-and-roll near the top of the key, a common occurrence in this series with Washington's big men struggling to stay in front of the ball-handler while accounting for the Hawks' versatile center. However, per the usual, there were second and third (and likely fourth and fifth) options off the initial action. One of those options was forward DeMarre Carroll.
When Teague attacked the left side of the lane, Carroll's defender, Wall, was forced to commit to help -- Atlanta's own All-Star point guard dumped it over the top. Wide-open layup. One-possession game.
"We were running a play mainly for Jeff and Al. I knew they were going to key in on them, so I slashed. That's what I do best," said Carroll, who scored 25 points and hit the go-ahead basket with 58 seconds remaining. "And when you have a good point guard like Jeff Teague, he finds you. He found me in the right spot."
Following a missed layup by Wizards forward Nene, the Hawks called another timeout. Similar play. This time the Hawks ran the two-man game on the right side of the lane, and while Teague's defender stuck with him and Horford dragged it was once again Carroll that, in his own words, did what he does best. The Wizards were partially frozen by the pick-and-roll action and Carroll cut in behind Wall from the opposite wing for another easy layup. Two-possession game.
Pierce was the shortest of moments away from cementing his place in Wizards lore, but those two plays not only sealed the game, they sealed it in Budenholzer-esque fashion.
The Hawks were surgical in their regular-season dismantling of opponents. That team-oriented, process-driven approach has largely abandoned them this postseason, forcing them to find different ways to score and win. They've fallen back on their very reliable defense to carry them for long stretches. Aside from a game apiece in Atlanta's first two series (Game 6 against Brooklyn, Game 4 against Washington), the offense has rarely found a 40-plus-minute rhythm.
When it mattered most in a closeout game, though, Budenholzer's group looked within.
They found the passing-movement-decision-making-pace combination that befuddles defenses -- at the most necessary of times.
"I just tried to drive at John Wall and see if he would commit to me, because he was helping a lot this whole game. So when I saw DeMarre make a cut, I just tried to hit him on time and on target," Teague said. "It's always fun just playing team basketball. Those moments are beautiful.
"Like everyone says, I guess we don't have a superstar or whatever. But we come up in big moments every night."
The Hawks will need more of those moments as they advance to take on the second-seeded Cavaliers, that team 700 miles north featuring four-time MVP LeBron James and his hobbled supporting cast. The Hawks will be the underdogs regardless of seed or home-court advantage or personnel. They won the regular-season series against the Cavs, but they will hold the burden of proof.
Still, the Hawks made history and, in the end, perhaps appropriately, they did it with a nod to the past: Flirting with disaster, tasting brief misery but ultimately relying on the collective.
