May 5, 2008...4:14 am
Confessions of a Fan
When a fan’s team is in the playoffs, he or she builds a list of reasons for hating the other team. It’s an organic catalog that starts with stereotypes about the other team’s city (ex: Detroit’s a run-down city) and ends with the annoying and meaningless physical features of the opposing players (ex: Rasheed Wallace’s freaking bald spot). Boston fans, groomed in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, are naturals at assembling ordered and ranked excuses to hate the other team.
But for the first round of the playoffs this year, I didn’t put much time into a hate hierarchy. Not a single analyst I heard predicted the Hawks hanging with the Celtics for more than five games. I thought it would be a clean sweep. Why waste energy hating Atlanta when the Celtics are facing so much more compelling teams in later rounds?
Then the Hawks won two games and I suddenly needed a list. Easy, right? Wrong.
For the first time in recent memory, I could not make myself hate the opponent. In truth, I fell for the Hawks.
This is not to say my love of the Celtics is in jeopardy. To put my feelings in context, it’s as if someone is married to his wife (the Celtics) and loves her very much, but still finds a young, hot actress (the Hawks) attractive. After Game 4, the Hawks were my metaphorical Jessica Alba.
I tried to dislike the Hawks, I really did. Usually recording of hate-able traits of the opposition takes no more than three easy steps.
Step One: Turn to the city.
Atlanta. Atlanta…. Uhh…. All I know about Atlanta is that the Braves, Falcons, and, um, Hawks play there. I could just trust what Ludcris said about the city in “Welcome to Atlanta.” Or not.
Step Two: Turn to the organization.
Well, Billy Knight is inept, but not in a malicious way. This is the organization that gave us one half of Bird-Wilkens. They had three of the more exciting Slam Dunk Champions: ‘Nique, Spud Webb, and Josh Smith. Most importantly, they’ve never been a competitive team for as long as I’ve followed basketball. As a Celtics fan, I’ve enjoyed that.
Step Three: Turn to the players.
This one should’ve been easy. They’re mostly young players taken in the lottery. In the NBA, teams built that way are usually mistake-prone, on and off the court. Chances are one player has a bad attitude, maybe even a rap sheet. Teams like this play me-first basketball, complain to the refs, ignore their coaches, don’t play defense, and generally give off a negative vibe. I hold these truths to be self-evident—I’m a survivor of the 2006-2007 Celtics season.
Well, guess what? The closest thing to a villain the Hawks have is Mike Bibby, who played so poorly the first two games that his comments about Boston fans became a joke. What the Hawks have are bona fide warriors.
Al Horford: The Leader
Anyone who watched the series understands his case for Rookie of the Year. He sets the tone for that entire team. Instead of being intimidated by the playoff atmosphere, the physicality of the series, and KG (who my Mom thinks needs to be institutionalized), Horford thrived under the greater pressure. While it was a surprise for most, including myself, to see a rookie emerge as the gritty leader of a playoff team, people probably shouldn’t have been so shocked. At Florida he won two national championships. In the 2007 title game he had 18 points and 12 rebounds. He knows how to win against good teams, and having someone with that knowledge, more than his rebounds or putbacks or toughness, was what allowed the Hawks to extend this series.
The defining moment of the series for the Hawks was when Horford hit the jumper to ice Game 3, then backpedaled up the court staring Pierce down and trashtalking him. Pierce had to be restrained, and, instead of the Celtics go-to crunchtime scorer, he looked like the rookie whose couldn’t control his emotions. While everyone in Boston thought that incident would make Pierce dominate Game 4, everyone on the Hawks roster saw it as proof that their win wasn’t a fluke.
Josh Smith: The Wing-Man
I’ve never seen a power forward run the break like Josh Smith. Chris Webber might have, but I was too young to remember it happening. As Gerald Green is out of the league and Fred Jones and Nate Robinson, even worse, play on the Knicks, Josh Smith and Dwight Howard are learning to harness the athletic gifts they showed in winning the dunk contest into legitimate basketball skills. Here are Smith’s stat lines for the first two Atlanta home games:
Points Rebounds Assists Steals Blocks
G3: 27 9 6 2 1
G4: 28 6 2 2 7
He was simply dominant. Whenever he was on a fast break Celtics fans did what girls do at horror movies—we covered our eyes with our hands, utterly afraid, and peeked in between the cracks, entirely excited. And really, the games in Atlanta were horror movies, with Josh Smith starring as the seemingly complacent guy who no one expected to go on a killing rampage. His home/road splits didn’t suggest any huge outburst on the horizon. Neither did his numbers against Boston. But KG simply could not contend with Josh Smith’s ridiculously athletic game in Atlanta, especially in crunch time.
A side note: Before Josh Smith turns into a real star, he needs a nickname. Someone get SLAM on this.
Joe Johnson: The Star.
I didn’t think he could be the best team on a contender before this series. Frankly, I hadn’t paid that much attention to him. Now I feel like an idiot. He’s 6’7,” 235 pounds, can shoot coming off screens or off the dribble, can back smaller defenders down, and can absolutely take over a game in the clutch. He shoots almost 40% from 3-point range. According to 82games.com, Johnson’s tied for 8th in fourth quarter scoring average in the NBA. And he’s only 26. I wish the Celtics could get guys like that.
An interesting aside: the parallels between Johnson and another member of the Celtics are ridiculous. The Celtics drafted Johnson out of Arkansas with the 10th pick in the 2001 draft. Know who they drafted with the tenth pick three years earlier? A 6-6, 230 forward whose college that also had the letters “kansas” in it: Paul Pierce. Right down to their style of play, they’re remarkably similar, only if Johnson looked like he didn’t work out and lost his temper during key moments in big playoff games.
Zaza Pachulia: The BRAIN!
Not only does he have one of the best names in the NBA, he also has one of the largest craniums. Just ask Kevin Garnett.
After watching the Hawks dismantle the Celtics in the first two games in Atlanta, I became a believer. When they run the break and feed off the crowd, they’re one of the most exciting teams the league has to offer. With one more shooter (Salim Stoudamire?) and an even better point guard (Acie Law?), and a few more years, they’ll contend.
But maybe my falling for the Hawks is just a microcosm of what has happened to the league in general. The whole NBA is experiencing a youth movement. The 2007-2008 season featured more than a few young teams showing that they didn’t need veteran leadership to grow up. Portland, the NBAs youngest team, shocked the West before the All-Star break. Philadelphia, the NBAs seventh youngest team, shocked the East after the All-Star break. Utah was the fifth youngest team in the NBA at the beginning of the season and now they’re a legitimate title contender. (Stats from http://www.rpiratings.com/NBA.html)
And now that the first round of the playoffs is over for my Celtics and the season for the Hawks, I can admit it. I like the Hawks. This fact made the last week and a half extremely difficult for me. I’m sorry to my everyone I watched the game with, pretending to hate Al Horford’s retainer just as much as they did. I’m sorry for pretending to really be pissed off by Zaza’s huge dome (I actually found it comical). I’m sorry for pretending to care what Mike Bibby thought of Boston fans. I’m sorry for living a first-round lie.
But I’m not sorry about being excited for the 2008-2009 Atlanta Hawks.
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