The Atlanta Hawks dropped game 4 in overtime to the Boston Celtics, 104-95.
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Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry heads off the court and to the locker room at the start of the second half in Game 4 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series against the Houston Rockets, Sunday, April 24, 2016, in Houston.
The Celtics will still need to win a game in Atlanta if they are going to win this series.
IN already knocked off the Raptors in Game 1 in Toronto, and Pacers star Paul George hopes the Pacers can steal one more road victory to set up a potential series-clinching win in Indianapolis. The Celtics are no strangers to double digit deficits, but had to pull out all the stops to bring this one back in what I would call a 4th quarter coach-off.
“One of our most redeeming qualities as a team is the guys are fighters”, said Stevens.
Thomas also guarded Jeff Teague on the final play of regulation, preventing him from getting a shot off, and blocked Millsap with 63 seconds left in overtime and the Hawks trailing by only four points.
DeRozan is hitting just 29.6 percent (21 of 71) in the series, while Lowry isn’t much better at 32 percent on 19-of-59 shooting. “I missed three in a row in the first half and they all felt good”. Smart, who went 1-for-11 in Game 2 while starting in place of Avery Bradley (hamstring), was back to coming off the bench in the last two games but logged 42 minutes in Game 4 and scored 11 straight Boston points during a key stretch in the fourth quarter.
“They responded to being down 2-0”, Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “He’s going to have to just continue to study the guys he potentially will guard, and that’s a lot of guys, because we’re switching a lot of screens and so he’s guarding everybody from [Jeff] Teague on a possession to [Al] Horford at the end of the game”. Millsap scored eight straight points in the 14-0 burst that gave Atlanta its 16-point lead.
“I think that obviously there’s great challenges playing wherever you’re playing but you know, when you’re playing on the road, you’ve got to do a great job of just staying in the moment and focusing on the task at hand”, Stevens said Monday. They played at a different pace than we did in Game 2 at the start. Instead, said Smart, “We just tried to run and run and run”.
The Celtics evened their first-round series with Jerebko notching a second consecutive double-double for the first time since Tracy McGrady started for the New York Knicks. And then Teague, having wasted too many seconds, was unable to get off a game-winning three-pointer as he lost his dribble at the buzzer going up against Thomas.
The Hawks, who live and die on their spread-the-ball, read-and-react mentality, were able to get Millsap only two shots in overtime — not ideal considering Millsap’s stat line. He then opened the overtime with a pair of assists to Amir Johnson. His three-pointer from the corner with a half-minute remaining in OT put Boston up 102-95 and revived memories of the noise when Ray Allen was making the same shots a few postseasons ago. Millsap’s teammates combined to shoot 18-for-69 from the field, otherwise the Hawks might very well be holding a comfortable 3-1 series lead.
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Thomas spent a night worrying whether he would be suspended for taking a swing at Schroder in the first quarter of Game 3; he got the word Saturday afternoon that he would be able to play.
