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Full Game Effort Produces Hawks First Win
By: Jason McDonald
Atlanta Hawks coach Mike Woodson that his young team was just a play away from winning a game. Wednesday night they made enough plays to defeat the Boston Celtics 120-117 at Philips Arena. "I think we can play with any team in the league if we play our game" is the belief Hawks Coach Mike Woodson has in his young team. After coming up short in several games this season, the winless monkey is finally off the Hawks back.
After the Memphis Grizzlies heartbreaker, Joe Johnson assured fans the team just needed to stick together to get a win. And stick together they did as Johnson spent 26 minutes on the bench in foul trouble. With Johnson pining Woodson turned to rookie Salim Stoudamire out of Arizona. Stoudamire, who was coming off a 30 point performance against the Hornets, turned in another stellar game knocking down 3 of 4 triples in scoring 19 points.
Ricky Davis sparked the Celtics with 21 points in the first half. While Davis flourished early, Paul Pierce struggled with fouls heading to the bench with his third personal and over five minutes remaining in the second period. With Pierce out the Hawks stretched the lead out to as much as seven points on two free throws from Harrington.
So far this season the Hawks Achilles heel has been keeping pace in the second and third quarters. Opponents have distanced themselves from the Hawks by close to 10 points on average during the middle quarters. Closing out quarters is one of the things Coach Woodson has been emphasizing this season. And the Hawks didn't do a good job of it in the second quarter allowing the Celtics to close to within a point at the half.
Pierce's slow start in the first half didn't last long. The NBA All-Star small forward lit up the Hawks for 16 in the third. In spite of Pierce's efforts the Hawks stayed close in the third thanks to balanced team scoring and tough defense on the rest of the Celtics.
Josh Childress' play in the third earned him a full 12 minutes in the final quarter. His defense helped limit Pierce to just 11 points but more importantly allowed the rest of the team to play the other Celtics straight up. The other 9 Celtics were held to just 10 points the rest of the way.
After allowing the lead to slip to one on a Pierce jumper with nearly 4 minutes to play, the Hawks came to life. Woodson called a 20 second timeout to give his troops a moment to settle down. Moment taken Harrington responded knocking down a tough 13-footer over Justin Reed. Boston never got closer than three as the Hawks celebrated their first win of the season the right way, at home.