Celtics Host Hawks in Winner-Take-All Game 7

Couper Moorhead
Celtics.com Correspondent
May 4, 2008

Today's 1 p.m. tipoff marks the once unlikely but now very real Game 7 between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks.

With the series tied at 3-3 and the best single-season turnaround in NBA history in danger of becoming a startling upset, all signs point to an old-fashioned dogfight.

"It's like the NCAAs, you're one and done," Ray Allen said. "You've got to do whatever you can to win the game.

"Game 7 is just like a last shot in the 4th quarter, you've got to take that shot," he added.

Following Allen's example, the three games at the Garden have looked every bit the dominant Round of 64 victories most people expected while the Phillips Arena has played host to more Elite-8, nail-biter type contests. But the example fails in one sense. As Doc Rivers pointed out, you don't get home games in the tournament.

"It's basketball," Rivers said. "We'd have loved to have won in four, we'd love to have won in five, six, but we have to win in seven. We've earned the right to do it at home."

When the Celtics have been absent from the Garden's friendly confines -- where they've won three games by a combined 310-243 margin -- so too has been their shooting touch, 47.3% at home and 43.9% on the road. The shooting discrepancy is due in no small part to Atlanta's upped defensive tenacity with their crowd behind them, with Rivers saying the Hawks were getting to over 90% of all loose balls in Game 6.

But if the exponential growth in the Garden's electricity from Game 2 to Game 5 is any indicator, the league's best defensive team should have all the urgings from the crowd it would ever need. Yet, it's possible this team is still finding that out. As dominant as the Celtics have been, and with as much collective postseason experience that they possess, this is still a team learning how to overcome playoff adversity together.

"A lot of our guys have been through [Game 7s]," Rivers said. "Some haven't. None of us have as a group. We've had some tests during the year. Now we have another one, our first big test in the playoffs is winning a Game 7."

Of all the statistics which vary based on the day's venue, there's one that has remained decidedly in the Hawks' favor from Game 1 -- free throws. Boston has taken 133 freebies to Atlanta's 204 chances at the stripe, which can be chalked up to a lack of aggressiveness on drives, especially with one of the NBA's premier swat machines lurking underneath the bucket: Josh Smith.

"I do think we're driving as well, and we're not getting to the line," Rivers said. "Maybe we have to be more physical in our drives. We have to stay in what we've done all year and play inside-ball. We've had a tendency in this series to stay out and we've got to do a better job of attacking the basket."

The phrase 'take it to them' is fitting. Before Game 5, when the Celtics shot a series-low 15 foul shots, Rajon Rondo explained that the best way to attack a shot blocker like Smith (3.2 blocks per game in the First Round) is go to right at his chest. Smith and the Hawks done the same on the offensive end, attacking the heart of the Celtics' defense.

"In Game 3, Josh Smith put his head down and said he was gonna attack our defense," Allen said. "You could almost see the adjustment that they made on our defense, like, 'We're going to attack that gap.'"

Then again, with the pushing, shoving, arm locks and staredowns all mounting with each passing game, any added aggressiveness must be controlled, as many Celtics have spent time in foul trouble, most notably Paul Pierce, who fouled out of Game 6 with 4:44 remaining.

Pierce sat out yesterday's walkthrough in Waltham with a hip injury suffered in Game 6. But it's the Hawks' starting small forward, Marvin Williams, who may not play Sunday after spraining his left knee in a fourth-quarter collision Friday night.

With or without Williams, the Hawks have proven three times now that they are a threat the Celtics cannot afford an inch of leeway.

"One team's gonna go home and one team is going to advance," reserve forward and defensive stopper James Posey said. "You just got to leave everything out there. You have to find a way to overcome whatever it may be."

They'll have to if the Celtics want to make their meeting with LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Otherwise, this regular-season gargantuan will be heading home rather than playing at home. After all the analysis and all the talk of upsets, the situation is simple.

"I see it as Game 7, in the NBA, at home," Rivers said. "We can look at it all the ways we want to. At one o'clock they're going to toss the ball up and we're going to have to come play basketball."