Ecstatic Basketball

    Complacency has struck the Celtics as it has struck the Pistons. The Hawks managed a tie score at half time and only got better as the game went on. Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, and Al Horford were very impressive against perhaps the best D in the league. The Hawks as a team shot 47% from the field and were 10 of 18 from deep. Even without Bibby backing up his big talk with a big game, the Hawks won a relatively clean game. They hit shots and the Celtics didn’t, except Garnett, turning out another stellar performance.

The Celtics need to realize that the Hawks’ crowd hasn’t been able to cheer a post season game in nearly a decade, and the 76ers recent wins only could have energized another huge underdog. This series won’t go long, but anything over 4 games is somewhat of a disappointment for the Celtics. The Pistons on the other hand have some soul searching to do. Yes, as Jon Barry pointed out, the Pistons have been down before and have responded well. They’re a veteran team that has seen it all, but that just feeds into the overconfidence that has hurt them so far against the younger, more athletic, and probably hungrier, 76er team. I will say, however, that the 76ers, who said that they have been playing with house money, will start to feel the pressure of possible further success and will tighten up a bit; their looseness has been the deciding factor in their wins.

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