The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hawks just barely avoid big flopalooza
We’re one game into this, and already we’ve seen how this series is apt to play out. If the Hawks can make this a beauty contest, they’ll win handily. If the Celtics can ugly it up, they have a real chance to upset the No. 4 seed. (Which, seeing as how the Celtics are a No. 5, wouldn’t be that big a deal. But still.)
Game 1, Half 1: Hawks make 44.4 percent of their shots to Boston’s 23.1 percent, outrebound the visitors 26-19 and outscore them 51-34.
Game 1, Half 2: Hawks make 36.6 percent of their shots to Boston’s 50 percent, get outrebounded 24-21 and are outscored 67-51.
“A game of two halves,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer called it, but it was more a game of two styles. The Celtics played at the Hawks’ measured tempo early and the Celtics can’t do that and win. The Hawks got sucked into the Boston whirlwind the second half and came very close to losing. They won 102-101.
Even by the Hawks’ notexactly-stellar playoff standards, a loss Saturday might have been the alltime flopalooza: from 19 points up to down 1-nil in the series. It didn’t quite happen and credit the Hawks. They trailed in the fourth quarter but found themselves just in time. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the Celtics lost starting guard Avery Bradley to a hamstring injury about the time they nosed ahead.)
The Hawks won because they’re more skilled than Boston. They blew a 19-point lead because the Celtics figured out what was working and stuck with it. Coach Brad Stevens deployed a small lineup for the game’s final 42 minutes, but it wasn’t until the final 22 that it took hold. “The last 15 minutes of the first half, we guarded really well,” Stevens said. “We said at the half, ‘We ride this way. We guard and we grind.’”
In the second half, guarding and grinding yielded actual scoring. The Hawks’ pace-andspace offense was lost in the Celtics’ dust. If not for the free-throw differential in the third quarter — the Hawks took 12 to Boston’s two; in the haste to guard/ grind, the Celtics put the home side in the penalty 115 seconds into the period — the C’s might have won going away.
But they didn’t, and they trail 1-nil, and it was announced Sunday that Bradley is unlikely to play again in the series. That’s not quite as devastating to the Celtics as it might be to another team: Marcus Smart, who scored 15 points Saturday, is an excellent third guard, and Stevens is clever enough to think of something.
If this sounds as if I’m giving the Hawks short shrift ... well, I plead guilty. They looked great for a half. Then you looked up and they were behind. They’d insisted they were better positioned for this year’s playoffs than they were a year ago, when Budenholzer’s desire to rest players essentially dulled the edge of a 60-win team, but midway through the second half, I was thinking, “Haven’t I seen this before?”
Enough carping. The Hawks won. Winning beats losing. Style points don’t matter in the playoffs. Only results do. The Hawks got their result. They held serve at home. On to Game 2, where more should be revealed.
Hardaway shrugs off groin strain
Tim Hardaway Jr. said the right groin strain that landed him on the Hawks injury report as questionable is nothing to worry about.
The reserve shooting guard left with less than a minute to go in the third quarter of the Hawks’ regular-season finale against the Wizards on Wednesday. He practiced on a limited basis before the Hawks hosted the Celtics in Game 1 Saturday night.
Hardaway was a game-time decision but was declared available before tipoff. He played 8:26 in the Hawks’ 102-101 victory and did not score.
Call-ups help Braves
After starting the season at Triple-A Gwinnett, Braves reliever Chris Withrow and rookie left-hander Hunter Cervenka have helped reverse the bullpen fortunes since being brought up by the big club.
Withrow was recalled April 10 and has allowed one run in four innings over five relief appearances, working 3⅓ hitless innings over his past four appearances with one walk and two strikeouts in that span.
Cervenka, who came up April 11 on the first day of the trip, allowed one hit and two walks with three strikeouts in 1⅔ innings over his first four major league appearances. He had two huge strikeouts of the only batters he faced in Saturday’s 6-4 win, before walking the only batter he faced Sunday.
“I told Cervenka we were going to get into games,” said Withrow, 27, who has made an impressive return to the big leagues after missing most of two seasons recovering from Tommy John elbow surgery and back surgery. “You hope you’re a piece of the bullpen and somebody that’s reliable, and I told him, just do everything
Georgia: Daniel Nichols and Stephen Wrenn hit backto-back home runs in the eighth inning as the Bulldogs (20-17, 6-9) came from behind for a 5-3 victory against No. 2 South Carolina (29-8, 11-4) at Foley Field. The win gave Georgia two out of three games in the series and its highest-ranked series victory since defeating No. 2 LSU in Athens in 2001.
Georgia Tech: The No. 19 Yellow Jackets (24-11, 8-9) snapped a four-game losing streak — their longest of the season — by hammering No. 12 N.C. State (26-10, 10-6), 16-7.
Georgia State: Joey Roach drove in three runs in the third inning with his 10th home run of the season, but Georgia State (16-19, 5-10) fell 5-3 at Louisiana-Monroe to drop the Sun Belt Conference series 2-1. The Panthers host Georgia Tech at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Kennesaw State: The Owls (18-19, 8-1) earned an Atlantic Sun series sweep with a 14-9 victory against USC Upstate (16-20, 1-7).
McCoy paces Bulldogs to SEC title
With senior medalist Lee McCoy leading the way, the No. 4-ranked Georgia men’s team won the program’s 29th league title, and eighth under coach Chris Haack, at the SEC championship on Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course at St. Simons Island.
The Bulldogs fired a finalround 5-over 285 to wind up at 13-over 853 and hold on for a three-shot win over Texas A&M (856). Florida and Arkansas tied for third at 861, while LSU took fifth at 864.
McCoy paced the Bulldogs to the win, closing at 1-under 69 to finish at 3-under 207. McCoy notched the seventh win of his collegiate career — one shy of the school record — by two shots over Kentucky’s Tyler McDaniel and three shots over Auburn’s Matt Gilchrest.