There is a line from one of my favorite movies, Kill Bill Vol. I, after Uma Thurman has made quick work of several goons trying to protect Lucy Liu's Japanese-American crime boss character. She hears approaching motorcycles in the distance, which means the "Crazy 88", Liu's personal army, are on their way to take her on.

Liu smirks at Thurman and says, "You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you?", to which Thurman responds: "You know, for a moment there? Yeah, I kinda did."

That pretty much sums up tonight for me, as the Hawks fell 108-93 to Miami to drop their first home playoff game in two years. After the total annhilation of the Heat in Game 1, I think we were all starting to search for our brooms, marveling at how old Jermaine O'Neal looked and wondering who on the Heat could possibly hurt us if D-Wade wasn't up to the task. Now we know the answers to those questions.

As we saw tonight, winning this series isn't going to be that easy. The Heat responded after their poor performance in Game 1 as we should have expected, and the Hawks just weren't able to match that fire unfortunately. To their credit they made several attempts at comebacks, but every time the Heat had an answer - usually from distance. Miami hit a franchise playoff record 15 threes in the game, raising my blood pressure with each one (Seriously Wade? A banked three?).

Miami deserves credit for this win, but the Hawks failure to execute in several areas (particularly at the foul line) aided the visitors' cause.

The good news is that, in my opinion, the sky isn't falling. I don't think Miami can play much better than they did tonight. Certainly Wade can go for more than 33, but I don't know that Jermaine O'Neal (impressive as he was tonight) can put up 19 every game, and I am not sure Cook or Wade will hit 6 threes again. Wade aside, I don't expect his supporting cast to maintain those efforts, and even with them, the Hawks still had a good chance at winning this game late. Atlanta most definitely can play better, and I expect that they will.

Lastly, I will say this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I know people are going to talk a lot about the difference in Dwyane Wade's performance tonight versus his output in Game 1. They are going to say he was more aggressive, that he got back to being the Wade we've come to know and complain about getting preferable treatment from the zebras love, but to me, he played almost the exact same game he did in Game 1 - he just hit the shots this time. Almost every perimeter shot he took was contested, and I don't recall all that many forays into the lane that put him on the line. But that's the thing about guys like Wade, Kobe, JJ, and the other elite scorers in this league - when they are hitting shots, sometimes there's just not that much you can do. I'm still more comfortable with him shooting jumpers than camping out at the charity stripe all night. All things considered, I would prefer he take the shots he took tonight, I'd just prefer he not, you know, make so many of them.

The series is now 1-1, and we move on to Miami for Game 3. We'll have plenty more to come before we get there, but in the meantime, we do know this - there will be a Game 5 at Philips Arena next Wednesday (time TBD), so why not go ahead and reserve your spot to be in the crowd now?

- Postgame Analysis
- Game 5 Tickets