11:08 - Zaza Pachulia has been a plus tonight so far. He has corralled
or tipped out 3 offensive rebounds already, and the Hawks as a team had
only 4 in Game 2 all night. Continuing a trend of mixing it up, Atlanta
has played Big Z and Horford together for the last several minutes.
It's 34-28 Hawks after a nice driving lay-up by Chills.
8:43 -
Timeout Hawks, and they lead 36-30 after another Childress layup
(that's 3 for him so far). Looking at the box score, Al Horford has a
nice little game going so far with 4 points, 4 assists, and 5 rebounds.
Of course, as I write that, he just picked up his second foul and will
have a seat. JJ is back in with his two now, but that is it for foul
problems so far.
6:13 - Now that's what I'm talking about! Boston
closed the game back to 36-33, but two straight 3-pointers by Joe
Johnson put the team back up 9 at 42-33. The Hawks are doing a much,
much better job in this game getting open looks for JJ, who had, I
don't know, 3-4 total in the first two games. Meanwhile, the Philips
Arena crowd is electric. If you aren't here tonight, you gotta get down
here for Game 4.
4:31 - The last few offensive possessions
haven't gone as well, and the Celtics have cut the lead back to 44-42.
We are starting to play the Celtics game, and the fouls are piling up
just a little (Zaza just picked up his 3rd). We need a good stretch to
carry the momentum of the first quarter into halftime here...
2:18 - Al and Marvin hit a pair of FTs each and the Hawks go back up 50-46. Solomon Jones comes in to give Al a break for the last two minutes to keep him out of foul trouble, and promptly gets hosed on a clean block of Kendrick Perkins. Grumble grumble grumble.
1:15 - Mike Bibby for threeeeeee! Bibby hasn't been looking for his shot much in this game so far, choosing to be a facilitator for his teammates (6 assists), but he just buried a huge 3 to give the Hawks a 54-50 lead and stop a Celtics run to get back in this.
0:00 - The Celtics make a run, but a Marvin Williams lay-in with 5 seconds left makes it a 56-56 tie going into halftime. Overall I am very pleased with the team's effort so far, but they let Boston back into the contest in the late stages of the second quarter with poor shot selection and a few turnovers. Still, it's a ballgame, and the crowd has been great so far, so hopefully the best is yet to come in the second half.
