The 6-0 Atlanta Hawks and the 7-1 Boston Celtics met Wednesday night in Boston for a battle of two of the powerhouses in the Eastern Conference.
Not surprisingly, the game was intense and down to the wire—just like last season when these teams met.
The high-flying, number-one-seeded Boston Celtics met the unlikely Atlanta Hawks as their eighth-seed adversary in the first round of the 2008 NBA playoffs.
The series, which many predicted to be an easy sweep for Boston, turned out to be a hotly contested, emotion-filled series that went seven games.
So when the established powerhouse Celtics met the emerging powerhouse Hawks in an early-season game Wednesday night, NBA fans got exactly what they were looking for.
The Atlanta Hawks were down two with 21 seconds to go, and they had the ball. Joe Johnson drove the lane, and with seven seconds to go, Marvin Williams hit a three to give Atlanta the lead.
The Celtics got the ball with seven seconds to go, and with .5 on the clock, Paul Pierce drained a game winner.
Boston 1, Atlanta nothing.
However, if any team should feel good coming away from this game, it should be the Hawks.
Atlanta played in Boston Wednesday night, where they got blown out miserably in Game Seven of their playoff series against the Celtics last season. The also played the game without the injured Josh Smith, their best defensive player, and the rest of the Hawks bigs were in foul trouble the whole night.
The upper hand goes to Atlanta. It took a buzzer beater to beat Atlanta under all of those circumstances, so wait until the game is in Atlanta and the Hawks have their whole team!
It is no doubt these are two of the better, if not two best, teams in the Eastern Conference. They two teams will surely be able to repeat their playoff duel in the 2009 postseason.
Look for the Eastern Conference championship to be Atlanta versus Boston, with Atlanta prevailing in seven.
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