NBA Playoffs / Celtics rout Hawks to clinch series
By The Associated Press
BOSTON - Kevin Garnett took a behind-the-back pass from Paul Pierce, slammed in the dunk to give Boston a 36-point, third-quarter lead and then slashed his hand across his throat to signal what the Atlanta Hawks already knew.
"It's over," he said.
Advertisement
The game. The series. The surprising little scare Atlanta put into the NBA's best.
Garnett had 18 points and 11 rebounds, Pierce scored 22 points, and the Celtics turned back the pesky Hawks with a 99-65 victory yesterday in Game 7 of their playoff series, earning a second-round matchup with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Round 2 begins tomorrow night, and the Boston fans are ready.
"We want Cleveland!" they yelled as the Celtics bench nursed the game to its conclusion.
Rajon Rondo, who missed a potential game-tying three-pointer in the Game 6 loss that forced the series back to Boston, had 10 points and six assists, taking his lumps in the game's pivotal play. Kendrick Perkins had 10 points and 10 rebounds before joining the rest of the starters on the bench in the formality of a fourth quarter, just as they did for much of the regular season.
Boston went 66-16 for the league's best record - 29 games better than the young Hawks team that earned the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
Although the upstarts put up little fight on the road, they won all three games in Atlanta by pushing back against Boston's Big Three of Pierce, Garnett and Ray Allen.
The skirmishes of the first six games boiled over with 9:09 left in the third quarter, with Boston already leading 51-28, when Rondo got the ball on a breakaway in the third quarter and had only Marvin Williams to beat.
The Hawks forward put an arm across his chest and took Rondo to the floor, where he lay for a few minutes while Celtics coaches and teammates checked on him. The officials immediately signaled a Flagrant 2 foul and, after reviewing the play, threw Williams out of the game.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
