NBA Playoffs 2012: Celtics Destroy Hawks, Lead Series 3-1

The Boston Celtics absolutely destroyed the Atlanta Hawks Sunday night, 101-79. With that victory the Celtics have a chance to put away the Hawks Tuesday night. In just 18 minutes on the floor, Paul Pierce scored 24 points before leaving the game do to an injury. As of this writing, early reports state Pierce is fine.

Snap Fast Reaction

In game 3 the Hawks put forth such a valiant effort. Now that game 4 is over, it makes you wonder what this team is. Atlanta basically laid an egg Sunday night. During the 3rd quarter they had their biggest deficit, 37. The worst thing to do to an athlete is question their heart. In this circumstance I don’t know what else to say. Breaking down field goal percentage will only get me so far. During the 2nd quarter of the game it seemed as if Atlanta deemed it a worthy time to throw in the towel. Al Horford even came back for them, he obviously did little to resuscitate the hearts of the Hawks players.

Boston looked great. Their 4 stars all played well in limited minutes. Ryan Hollins even saw 12 minutes of action tonight. The Celtics dominated play after play. Looking like a team with their playoff stock on the rise. Rondo had another hilariously great stat line(20-16), while Pierce scored a ton before leaving the game due to an injury. In a side not, Avery Bradley who was hurt in game 3, came back and started for the Celtics tonight.

Celtics Star of The Game

This looks to be a reoccurring theme for Boston. When Rondo goes bananas, the team wins. 20-16 is a great stat line to begin with. But it becomes even better if you factor in only 1 turnover. For every 16 assists that man had, he committed only 1 turnover. If that did not blow your mind, think about it like this. For ever 1 turnover he had, he successfully helped his team score 16 others. For a player who has no legitimate jump shot. I mean the kind of jumper that would get you picked last in intramural basketball. To have these kind of numbers and impact on games is ludicrous. He is just so great in every other aspect of the game.

Hawks Star of The Game

Ivan Johnson, he only played 6 minutes. I can’t, in good faith, actually say there was a Hawks star tonight. I don’t care Josh Smith had the laziest 15-13 ever. The whole team was a joke tonight. This was game 4 of a 7 game series. It looked like they thought it was game 2 of the preseason. So Ivan Johnson, a 28 year old rookie, gets the nod tonight. Not only was he a +7 tonight, he embarrassed himself the least.

I Do Not Understand

So your whole life you work to be great at something. If your lucky, it is something you love. Then finally you get to that point. Your profession is the one thing you always wanted to do with yourself. After that, big time stuff starts to happen. You and your “firm” are starting to go places, get noticed. What do you and your “firm” do? That’s right, you absolutely wet the bed.

The past few seasons Atlanta has earned the reputation of a team with fake stars. The talent is there, John Johnson and Josh Smith are good. But they are the “I fill stat sheets in the regular season” good. Year after year, they bring Atlanta hope. Hope of a team going deep into the playoffs. In a few series they even pushed other teams to the brink of elimination. Making you think the team was close to breaking out. Nope, overachievers need not apply to the Hawks. They are fine looking mediocre through the regular season, only to look like dopes come playoff time.

What This Game Means

The Atlanta Hawks’ fans are going to want the team blown-up in the off season. If they don’t, they must be infected and numbed by Atlanta’s mediocrity. Atlanta has some soul searching to do. Nationally, nobody cares about this organization. A few, not that many really, Georgians do care. So if the Hawks are going to go out, they should at least go out trying. Not being the better team is fine. Losing by 30 because you gave up in the 2nd quarter is not. Game 5 will be a test of the Hawks’ character. Here is a prediction, they will fail.

Boston should be happy with this win. Not giddy or anything, just plain ole happy. Atlanta no showed this game and Boston smacked the taste right out of their mouths. So they did what they were suppose to do. It’s nothing something to be overly proud of. But it’s not like it was Doc Rivers fault the Hawks only came to the arena to get dressed.

Moving Forward

I am covering 2 games for Sir Charles. They are both horrible to cover. The reason being, a team in each series does not seem to care. In my other series, Jazz/Spurs, you can at least chalk up the blowouts to Utah being young. This Atlanta team has been together for a while now. I already told you that game 5 will be a test of their character. Here is what I am hoping. Somebody(anybody), steps up and carries this team on its shoulders. Making this series interesting. Unfortunately, that only happens in movies. Joe Johnson is no Willie Beamen.

Expect Boston to put this series away. The Celtics got to play another game with their starting 5 intact. And because of all these blowouts, their guys are rested. The chemistry seemed to click tonight. Don’t expect them to regress at this point. Don’t be shocked if they win game 5 by 20 as well. Something about those Hawks tell me they don’t seem to care…

Game 5

Watch Atlanta continue to embarrass itself Tuesday at 8pm on TNT. Then come back to Sir Charles for a recap. I promise, I will only get harder on the Hawks.

Joe Nardone is a Writer/Blogger for Sir Charles In Charge. You can follow him on the twitter machine @JosephNardone