The Atlanta Hawks were humiliated in game 2 of their playoff series with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and are embarrassing themselves further by complaining about the Cavs going for the three point record and not sending the game into garbage time earlier.
First, the comments by the esteemed Paul Millsap, Al Horford and Kent Bazemore.
- Millsap said it’s a certain way of being a professional. I’m not mad about it, but just being professionals man. If that’s how you want to approach it, that’s how you approach it. I think our team and our organization has class and I don’t think we would have continued to do that, but other organizations do other things so what can you do about it?
- Horford said we probably wouldn’t do anything like that if we were in that position. It’s hard to say, but I would say no
- Bazemore said I’m a firm believer in karma. aybe we’ll be the team to break that record soon. Everyone knows how they play. They get out in front and they’re a totally different team. It is what it is. We’ll see them again. That wasn’t Game 4. That was only Game 2. They still have to beat us two more times before they can really celebrate anything
Professional should mean doing your job, and doing it the best way possible. The Cavaliers did their job, which was playing basketball at the highest level. Records are meant to be broken. Did they do it to humiliate the Hawks. Maybe. Who cares? These are pro players making millions. These aren’t children learning about life from the experiences of their first basketball games. And constantly saying they’re not mad about it? It means they’re fuming.
The Hawks lost by 25 points, but it was a 74-36 game just before half time. The Cavs landed 18 three pointers on their head in the first half, 25 overall. J.R. Smith said he kept feeling open. The Cavaliers didn’t carry on with their “leave Dennis Schroder open” defensive tactic, but they kept disrespecting the Hawks by beating them, badly.
Hawks players didn’t want to be in the postgame press conference for some reason, at least none of their starters did. Funny how in a less exposed environment they’re feeling free to complain about how classless the Cavaliers are, when the only thing they should be complaining about is how on earth did they manage to look this bad.
And if they felt so bad about it? When Mark Jackson was the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, in one of their games against the Houston Rockets the Rockets were pouring down three pointers on them, on their way to break the NBA record for threes in one game. Jackson ordered his players to foul Houston players before they have a chance to pull up for threes, so they wouldn’t be the ones on the other end of a new record.
Charles Barkley said to do that, pretty much: You’ve got to take somebody out. When a team is just embarrassing you, shooting threes when the game is way over, just trying to set a record….You have to knock the heck out of them. Not for this game; to set the tone for the next game.