Dale Zanine- USA Today Sports
After the Atlanta Hawks‘ demoralizing Game 2 loss to the undermanned Cleveland Cavaliers, reserve Kent Bazemore still declared that the Hawks were the “better team” in this series despite being in a 0-2 hole.
Tonight, Bazemore is going to have to back up his words with action.
With sharpshooter Kyle Korver out for the remainder of the series with a high-ankle sprain, Bazemore is going to be thrust into a pivotal role in what is easily the most important game for Atlanta this season, because if the Hawks lose tonight, it’s a done deal.
Bazemore put a whole lot of unnecessary pressure on himself and his team with his weird comments following a Game 2 performance that found the Hawks getting waxed by Cleveland that’s missing two of its three best players.
In fact, Atlanta has been pretty listless this entire series, as they are getting a rude postseason education that you can’t automatically expect to beat a team in the playoffs that you dominated in the regular season.
But based on Bazemore’s comments, he’s not getting the proper education that his Hawks teammates are getting. Based on Bazemore’s thought process, 60 wins should automatically make you the best team in the weak Eastern Conference.
Wrong.
While everybody was anointing the Hawks as the “San Antonio Spurs of the East,” I was one of the few who looked at the Hawks team without rose-colored glasses. I said during this season that Atlanta was really just a bunch of overachievers who played without any expectations, and were able to take advantage of Cleveland’s slow start, and the Washington Wizards that didn’t play up to expectations.
The Cavaliers are proving my point.
So Bazemore is going to have to put his money where his mouth is tonight. It’s basically do or die for the Hawks, and if Atlanta goes down tonight, I want to hear what Bazemore will have to say about getting throttled by a team that’s missing its core players.
Kareem Gantt covers the NBA and the rest of the sports world for Rant Sports. For more from this author, follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and add him to your network on Google.
