Posts tagged ‘Atlanta Hawks’

In today’s episode of Celticscast…

The Starting 5: Hawks fly to life to tie up series

• *It’s actually tied 2-2
• *Mike Bibby playing past Rondo
• *Joe Johnson taking over in 4th
• *Atlanta Fans making some noise
• *So What’s next?

Plus..

• *We’ll check in on the other seven series - two over, five still going
• *We look at the fracas involving KG, Joe Johnson, Sam Cassell and ZaZa and four technical fouls
• *Where’s the bench?

And…

• *Chris and Andrew are just very surprised, but still hopeful with game five upcoming.

All this and more just a click away on Celticscast! Remember to E-mail hosts@celticscast.com or give us a call at 617-934-0268 and be a part of the show.

All October and November we heard about the problems the Celtics would have: they don’t have a point guard, they’re thin inside, they don’t have experience playing together, no bench…

All regular season, the Celts proved all those unbelievers wrong. Rondo was learning, improving and becoming one of the best young PG in the East, if not the game. Cassell added some depth and House was there for threes…Perkins was a serviceable Center and rarely dominated…the team played like old friends and rarely had jitters while passing the ball with eyes behind their heads and intensity in every regular season game…the bench ruled many games as Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Posey, House and others contributed every game.

So here we are after game four and let’s look:

Point Guard: Rondo was pretty good, not great…shooting 6-16 with 12 dimes and just two turnovers. On offense no complaints at all but defense lacked a bit as his intensity in guarding Mike Bibby stepped down a notch as did his success. In the first half, Cassell was not only not good but made the team worse. Several times he took the ball up the court, didn’t pass and then threw up a brick or turnover. In fact, Doc didn’t even give him much of a chance in the second half instead going with House who, like Sam, didn’t score.

Center: Perkins had his typical 24 minutes on the floor and also was OK, but didn’t control the inside against Al Horford - this was more of an issue in game three. The C’s had plenty of 2nd chances and just couldn’t finish too many times in game four.

Bench: OK so the C’s bench outscored Atlanta’s 13-4. But it was only 13 points…Where’s Tony Allen? Eddie House only 6 minutes and 0 points…Leon Powe just three and Posey had the other ten. There was no boost when these guys came in. In fact the biggest chances were early in quarter one and quarter three when the starters were in.  It’s actually really surprised me we haven’t seen much of TA (about 12 mins in the series) and the way Doc managed this team for like the last 30 games this different rotation may be tough to adjust to.

Jitters: The Celtics did not look like themselves today, especially in the second quarter. One of the Hawks assistants said they had lost their composure. Wow. I think the home crowd should get them going again but this certainly hasn’t been as easy as first thought (and I still think should have been). Once this was close down the stretch, Joe Johnson took over and in a LeBron type of a way wouldn’t be stopped…the key was keeping the ten point lead and that didn’t happen…One loss is OK, two is a concern.

In today’s episode of Celticscast…

The Starting 5: Games 1-2 v. the “NBA playoff team” known as the Hawks

• Game two domination
• Mike Bibby’s poor word choices
• James Posey’s flagrant foul
• Game one domination
• Series over?

Plus..

• We’ll check in on the other seven series which mostly have been more closely contested
• Our resident statistician from Wellesley chimes in with his picks - our email is hosts@celticscast.com to join the show
• KG is defensive player of the year

And…

• Chris and Andrew are pumped they get to do a show from in the same regional area of New England.

All this and more just a click away on Celticscast! Remember to E-mail hosts@celticscast.com or give us a call at 617-934-0268 and be a part of the show.

Sit tight folks - Chris and I have some good plans for our big-time playoff preview show that we’ll be putting together tomorrow (Friday). Look for it tomorrow evening and it should be up and ready for the NBA playoffs to kick off. We’ll spend a bunch of time on the Celtics/Hawks matchup and draw in some guests from the Boston and Atlanta Media. And of course we’ll peruse the other Eastern and exciting Western Conference first round matchups.

In the meantime, let’s go Bruins! And Red Sox cast is up and running - you can reach it by the drop down menu at the top of our page. For those interested in the NBA or NHL playoffs, our network has podcasts for the Spurs (saspurscast.com), Pistons (pistonscast.com), Rangers (nyrangerscast.com) and Devils (devilscast.com).

Cheers

The Sunday Globe reports that PJ Brown might sneak into the game today against the Hawks just four days after starting practicing with the Celtics and admitting the other day he wasn’t quite ready (in NBA shape). Tony Allen is also likely to play after missing the last couple of games with a strained right calf.

It’s been a while since the Hawks matched up with the C’s (not since the fourth game of the season in fact). If you don’t remember, Atlanta played a very good first quarter and had the lead in the Garden before the Celts really ratcheted things up in the 2nd and led in double digits for most of the game after. Obviously, Atlanta looks a bit different after dealing out Tyronn Lue, Shelden Williams (boo Duke), Lorenzen Wright, Anthony Johnson and a draft pick. We may not see former Texas A&M star Acie Law tonight either - he’s been battling a wrist injury and didn’t play in the Hawks unimpressive win over the Knicks the other night.