Yes, Thomas was an All-Star this season, but he isn’t a superstar, and he needs help if the team is going to be successful.
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Players sharpen their focus. Expect Boston to be much more competitive, but Atlanta will weather the storm and steal one on the road on Friday night. Off the bench Patty Mills scored a game high 16 points, Kawhi Leonard had 13 points and LaMarcus Aldridge chipped in with 10 points and 4 blocked shots. They led 43-28 at the half having gone scoreless over their final seven possessions of the second quarter.
There have already been four victories of at least 25 points, which matched the total for the entire playoffs in 2014.
The San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks used fast starts to take control of their respective play-off series on Tuesday night.
“I guess we’ll see what happens”, he said.
Hawks make 44.4 percent of their shots to Boston’s 23.1 percent, outrebound the visitors 26-19 and outscore them 51-34. Boston is now down 0-2 against the Hawks who can finish off the Celtics in the next two games in front of fans that have witnessed a Celtics team that failed to even get a single playoff win previous year.
And so we ask: Are the Atlanta Hawks this good, or have the Boston Celtics, who are down two men and two games, this bad?
Bradley underwent an MRI on his hamstring Wednesday, and the results were about as good as the Celts could have hoped. “You have to figure out, especially after a game like (Tuesday) night what didn’t go well, what we felt like didn’t go well but maybe once you watch the film it really went a little bit better than you thought, and kinda get ready for the next game”. Center Kelly Olynyk is being considered “questionable at best”, according to Celtics’ coach Brad Stevens, with a shoulder injury.
Stevens waited a mere 3 minutes, 48 seconds before going small in Game 1 and did the same at 3:15 of Game 2, both times subbing Evan Turner into the lineup for Amir Johnson. “It’s like we got to get punched in the mouth for us to start playing the way we need to play”.
Atlanta will likely try to exploit Bradley’s absence with the dynamic point guard duo of Jeff Teague and Dennis Schroder.
Tony Allen led Memphis with 12 points and Zach Randolph had 11 points and 12 rebounds.
By the end of the first quarter the Celtics trailed, 24-7, thanks to the Hawks’ inability to make their last eight shots of the quarter. It was announced Sunday he will become the new head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, but only after Atlanta’s season is over. This team’s playing at a really good level that we’re playing against.
The more things change the more the San Antonio Spurs remain constant. “We need to get better supporting cast around Isaiah”.
The Grit-n-Grind Grizzlies have been anchored for years by Randolph, Marc Gasol and Mike Conley. Hunter and Terry Rozier may have to play larger roles in the backcourt.
Isaiah Thomas is shooting 33 percent from the floor during this playoff series.
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“Allen Iverson just said “Keep fighting”. “Can we do better?”. Thomas, who has played in just six career playoff games, is averaging 17.3 points on 29.0 percent shooting from the field over his last four playoff games after averaging 22.0 points on 42.9 percent shooting over his first two career playoff games.
