BOSTON –- Not long after the Atlanta Hawks banished their green-and-white demons on the parquet floor by suffocating Isaiah Thomas and sending the Celtics' biggest fan, Bill Russell, and 18,000 others home to count all of their draft picks, the Hawks turned their focus toward trying to vanquish another tormentor.
Atlanta did something on Thursday night that it had never done in franchise history –- win a playoff series clincher in Boston with a much-deserved 104-92 Game 6 victory that really wasn’t that close. And the Hawks beat Boston for only the second time in 12 playoff encounters and for the first time since 1958.
The Hawks’ reward now is a second-round date with LeBron James, the man who didn’t just sweep them in the Eastern Conference finals last year but stomped all over them while averaging 30.3 points, 11 rebounds and 9.3 assists in those four games.
But the Hawks believe they might be better equipped to handle King James this time around. Atlanta might be a better defensive unit than last year’s edition with DeMarre Carroll, who got hurt early in the series.
“I think we are a better team than last year,” said Kyle Korver, who played in just two games against Cleveland before suffering an ankle injury. “I really do. I think the identity is more on the defensive end than offensive end this year. I think we know that we are going to have to play really well to beat them.”
Point guard Jeff Teague, who will have to play at a high level against Kyrie Irving in this next round, echoed Korver’s sentiments that the Hawks are a better defensive unit this go-round.
“Yeah,” Teague said after the Hawks smothered the Celtics into 36.2 percent shooting and led by as many as 28 early in the fourth. “I think we were slowing up when we came into the series [against Cleveland] last year.
“I think we reached our peak kind of early, and right now we are still growing defensively and getting a lot better. I think the offense will catch up with it.”
Thomas may have had a 42-point outing in Game 2 of this series and finished with 25 points and 10 assists in Game 6. But he was absolutely blanketed on Thursday night by the Hawks. Nearly every time Thomas made his way into the paint in half-court sets, he was met by a wall of two, three and sometimes even four Hawks.
Atlanta dared other Celtics to shoot the ball. And everything seemingly was contested. The Hawks blocked 12 shots and Paul Millsap had three of his four swats in the first quarter alone.
Atlanta averaged 8.6 blocks per game, with Millsap and Al Horford rejecting 2.6 shots in the series.
At some point after last year’s sweep, the Hawks -- who won 60 games last year with their flowing read-and-react, move-the-ball offense -- made a more conscious effort to become a defensive-oriented team.
“Obviously, it is another year with people learning the defensive schemes,” Kent Bazemore said. “We added new length this year, added a little bit more size with Kris Humphries. Every player has gotten a lot better.
“Paul and Al are blocking shots at an alarming rate. That rim protection definitely helps. We trust each other defensively.”
Of course, letting Celtics like Evan Turner, Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder and Jonas Jerebko shoot from the perimeter is a better gamble than daring Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith and Channing Frye to make their open looks.
Smothering the 5-9 Thomas and blocking his shot is a whole lot easier than dealing with the 6-8, 250-pound raging bull named LeBron.
“Our defense is going to have to be what it was in this series, if not better,” Korver said. “And our offense is going to have to be a lot better. They are a great team, have a lot of individual talent. So it is a big challenge for us.”
The Hawks will be heavy underdogs against Cleveland. But they’re playing together as a team, sharing the ball and covering each other’s backs on defense.
They might be a lot more boring than the flashier individuals on Cleveland's roster. But if the Hawks can steal one in Cleveland next week and take an early lead in Atlanta in this series, the pressure will ramp up on James and the Cavaliers.
As it is, all the pressure is on Cleveland to make it back to the NBA Finals, and who knows how James, Irving and Love and the Cavs’ chemistry will react if the Hawks can make things tough on them.
That, though, is if the Hawks play even better than they did against Boston.
“We just wore them down, man,” Teague said of how the Hawks beat the Celtics. “As the games and the series went on, we just forced our will on them to figure out what we can do to slow them up a little bit.”
“We just wanted to wear them down,” Teague added. “We knew they were a one-man wrecking crew basically [with Thomas]. They got some good players, but we know they all feed off of what he does and we tried to make it tough for him.”
Now the Hawks get the guy who demolished them last year.
“I’m ready,” Bazemore said of facing James again. “I’m excited. We got a rematch from last year. They swept us so. ... [we] definitely have a chip on our shoulder about that.”