Pierce's shot leaves Hawks facing uphill battle in wide-open East
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Paul Pierce methodically made his way from one corner of the locker room to the other, passing in front of the Wizards' smeared whiteboard before reaching his locker. If Pierce was in the mood to spread his truth, he was taking his time. Dressed in a navy suit and being humorously rushed to the podium by his public relations staff, Pierce rummaged through his belongings in front of a red shirt hanging in his locker. The shirt read "WHY NOT US?"
As Pierce passed through the Verizon Center locker room dotted with other red shirts offering identical mantras and offered high-fives to clubhouse employees, he found a familiar face in the crowd. Putting his arm around a former media member that covered him during his Boston heyday, he started repeating his own mantra.
"Just like old times," Pierce laughed. "Just like old times, huh?"
Pierce's last-second winner in Game 3 against the Atlanta Hawks -- utilizing his favored shot from the elbow on a play coach Randy Wittman drew up a day prior -- not only handed the Wizards a 2-1 series lead, but it also shook up the Eastern Conference race.
The 103-101 Washington win reestablished that the wide-open race to the NBA Finals is not going to fall into the laps of the Eastern Conference's top seed. If the ongoing John Wall injury saga was a series-altering development, it was not a series-ending one. Thanks to Pierce's banked-in winner over two sets of outstretched arms, the Wizards found new life at the bottom of a dog-pile.
"There was a sense that we would lose in the first round to Toronto," said Pierce, who claimed his second career playoff buzzer-beater, when asked about doubts following Wall's diagnosis of five non-displaced fracture in his left hand and wrist. "Everybody's going to have their opinion. We feel like it's only us in that locker room who's going to give us a chance. Put the predictions out each round -- I know some of the guys see it, I hear it. But I really don't pay attention to that. We feel like we should've won Game 2, truthfully. Even with John out, we feel like we still have enough to win a game, to win this series. It's not going to deter us from our goals."
This is the opponent standing in the way of the top-seeded Hawks, a team playing without its best player and one that refuses to allow separation.
The favorites' path to the conference finals is once again uphill.
There were positives for Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer and his staff, but they all came in the final 12 minutes with the starters on the bench and a white flag at half-mast. The Wizards dominated from the outset on Saturday. They earned the lead and built upon it. The Hawks eventually fell behind by 21 points with less than 10 minutes remaining when Budenholzer sent in the second (or third) unit. The reigning Coach of the Year even allowed that the outcome was all but decided at that point: "We hadn't played well. You never know what's going to happen, but most likely you feel like you're not going to be able to close that gap."
Then strange things started happening.
The backup-driven group started chipping away at the lead. Down by 20 at the eight-minute mark, everything fell into place. Led by reserve point guard Dennis Schroder, the Hawks mounted a 17-0 run. When Washington swung back, the Hawks went a shorter 5-0 run. Down three points with 15 seconds on the click, big man Mike Muscala drained a tying 3-pointer on a botched-and-recovered kick-out from Schroder.
Washington's nightmare had come to fruition.
Then Pierce woke everyone up -- and sent them home.
"I think to have a visual of what it takes and how to play is always a positive," Budenholzer said of the comeback. "But I think the feeling that was there for the majority of the game is also important, too. I don't which is stronger or which is more important. They're both real. We have to look at both of them."
Atlanta missed a golden opportunity to seize control of a series against a depleted fifth-seeded team -- when a series is tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner advances 76 percent of the time -- and, by laying a three-quarter egg in the nation's capital, saw its window close slightly. It's fairly clear that this is the Hawks' best chance of reaching the franchise's first Eastern Conference finals since moving from St. Louis, but it's also the only extended postseason run promised to this group. The cards are on the table: No. 1 seed, 60-win regular season, two remaining East teams suffering significant injuries (Wall, Kevin Love), a relatively healthy starting five featuring four All-Stars and the Coach of the Year pacing the sidelines.
Assuming Cleveland remains a threat while acquiring complementary pieces for LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, Washington and Chicago continue to build around excellent young backcourts and young teams like Milwaukee and Boston stay on their upward trajectories, the East is not likely -- or, perhaps, simply cannot -- get worse in the coming years. Couple that with the uncertainty surrounding the pending free agency decisions for Atlanta starters DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap, this run is the surest opportunity Atlanta's starting five will find. All of which adds weight to Pierce's game-winner. This is the only guaranteed window. And, in terms of the Eastern Conference, it's wide-open.
The problem: If the Hawks submit lackluster performances, barring that improbable 17-point fourth-quarter swing, it leaves the door open for a shorthanded Wizards roster to claim that same window as their own.
Even with Wall missing his second straight game, the Wizards were unquestionably the better team on Saturday. Final scores can lie. The Hawks lost an opportunity to take control of the series, but their effort did not exclusively cost them Game 3. Washington took it.
The home team played better in nearly every phase for longer stretches, and perhaps that's the most concerning note for the top seed heading into Game 4 facing a series deficit: The Wizards seem to be figuring things out in their post-Wall world.
Those shirts hanging in the lockers of Pierce and Bradley Beal and the rest of the Wizards come off as more than coachspeak or marketing ploys. In a conference riddled by injuries, lackluster play and the absence of a team that has imposed its will throughout the early portion of these NBA playoffs, why not the Wizards? Why not the Hawks?
Both teams still have more questions than answers.
