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BOSTON — The Celtics have a 2-0 lead in their first-round playoff series against the mathematically inferior Hawks. They are the better band at this NBA party, having withstood their own bouts of ennui to win by 13 points in each game, margins that could easily have been far greater.
But if the Bostonians are of the mind that advancement to the next round is in the bag, there is the fact that two wins are not four. And there is Al Horford — and history.
Now a 16-year veteran the Celts handled with care to get to the postseason rested and ready (no back-to-backs for Al), he was a 21-year-old rookie for 8th-seeded Atlanta in 2008, going against the Paul Pierce-Kevin Garnett-Ray Allen C’s and getting waxed by an average of 21 points in the first two games of that year’s opening round.
The Hawks had finished 29 games behind the title-bound, 66-win Celtics, and there was no reason to believe their series would go any more than four.
Yet it went longer. It took the Celts the full seven games to shake the .500 Hawks.
Horford is prepared to sit the C’s down for storytime and tell the tale.
“I haven’t yet… but it’s something I’ve obviously thought about,” he told Heavy Sports prior to Game 2. “If the time is right, I’ll be ready.”
Focus Still an Issue for Celtics
The Celtics have needed a good talking-to a few times in this series. They led by as many as 32 in Game 1 before easing up and letting Atlanta get within a dozen early in the fourth quarter. On Tuesday, they spotted the Hawks an 11-point edge 6:18 after tipoff, rallied to go ahead by 20 before letting the margin shrink to nine early in the last quarter.
“For us, it’s focus level,” said Horford. “That’s something that we have to have. And I think for that (Celtics) team back then, I can’t speak for them, but I feel like they probably were like, ‘Oh, we blew them out the first two at home. We’re just going to run through ’em in Atlanta, no problem.’ Then it was like, oh, it became a series. So it’s very important that we stay locked in. That’s VERY important for us. We can’t underestimate teams.
“And,” he added, nodding toward the Hawks’ dressing room on the other side of the hallway, “that team is way better than we were back then.”
Horford’s Hawks Grew From Celtics Loss
Those Atlantans, led by Joe Johnson and Josh Smith, were a 37-win outfit. But after falling hard to Boston’s Hall of Fame trio and friends at TD Garden, they evened the series Down South. The Celts trounced them by 25 in Game 5, but didn’t learn their lesson, getting outlasted, 103-100, in the sixth game.
There were some mixed feelings for young Mr. Horford on that charter flight back to Boston for Game 7. There was the fact his club had to face the daunting task of beating the Celtics on the parquet floor, but, hey, it was Game 7, a 48-minute exercise where any number of factors could come into play and affect the outcome.
“Obviously you couldn’t believe it — a Game 7,” Horford said. “But every game here in Boston, we got blown out pretty bad, so it was like one of those. But we came in hopeful, then obviously hope went away quickly once the game got going in the first quarter. The Celtics were just a much deeper team than we were, and, like you said, three Hall of Famers. But for our group, that was huge for all of us.”
Even with the Celtics smoking his Hawks, 99-65, to advance to another seven-game duel with Cleveland, it was an important step. Atlanta would go on to win 47 games the next year and 53 in 2009-10, making the Eastern Conference semifinals three straight years.
“For me, it was a series that was just career changing for me,” said Horford, who averaged 12.6 points and 10.4 rebounds against the Celts that April (unlike the modern Al, he didn’t take a single 3-pointer). “I mean, coming into the league so young and experiencing that right away for the playoffs I feel like just kind of set me up — understanding the meaning, the intensity of playoff basketball.
“And that Boston team was THAT good. We should have never been in that series. We had no business being in that series at all. So, right, you have to be ready. Anything can happen.”
That may take some convincing for these Celtics, whose attention to detail can sometimes wane. Better they should heed Al Horford’s history lesson.
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