NBA playoffs scores 2015: Paul Pierce can’t beat the clock as the Hawks advance

The Hawks are heading to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 1970 thanks to a shot by Paul Pierce being just after the buzzer.

by Liam Boylan-Pett

Updated May 16, 2015, 12:00 PM UTC

Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

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NBA playoff results: Hawks eliminate Wizards, Warriors close out Memphis

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Paul Pierce needed just a 10th of a second, maybe two. But he didn't get it. And instead of his three-point shot sending the Washington Wizards to overtime against the Atlanta Hawks, the apparent game-tying shot was waved off. The result was a 94-91 series-clinching win for the Hawks.

With the win, Atlanta is heading to the Eastern Conference finals, its first trip to the conference finals since 1970. The Hawks will face the Cleveland Cavaliers. Game 1 is in Atlanta on Wednesday.

A balanced attack keyed the Hawks, just like it has all year. Four players scored in double figures. DeMarre Carroll led the way with 25 and added 10 rebounds. Paul Millsap had 20 points and 13 rebounds while Jeff Teague had 20 points and seven assists.

John Wall was fantastic in his second game back with a broken wrist. He had 20 points and 13 assists as his backcourt mate Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 29 points. Pierce struggled all night, scoring just four points and was left wondering what could have been if his last-second three had fallen.

The Hawks led 45-39 at halftime as neither team could find a groove on offense. They jumped out to a 15-point lead in the third quarter, but couldn’t put the Wizards away.

The Wizards, led by Wall and Beal, chipped away at the deficit and retook the lead with 3:50 to play. They were tied with 1:14 to play, but Teague found Carroll on backdoor cuts on consecutive plays to give the Hawks a four-point lead with 30 seconds to go.

Garrett Temple hit two free throws and Al Horford made one. The Hawks led by three with 6.4 seconds left. Then this happened:

Only it didn’t count. The ball was still in Pierce’s hand when the buzzer sounded. The Hawks won.

3 other things we learned

The Golden State Warriors are NBA title favorites:

After struggling in Game 2 and 3, the Warriors looked like that 67-win team they were in the regular season. They moved quickly and hit their shots as they won Game 6 over the Memphis Grizzlies, 108-95.

NBA MVP Stephen Curry was unbelievable. He scored 32 points with eight made three-point shots (including the play of the night below) and 10 assists. The Warriors hit 50 percent of their shots against the Grizzlies on Friday. Nothing against the rest of the teams left in the playoffs, but none of them play defense like Memphis.

The Warriors are going to have an easier time scoring throughout the rest of the playoffs. And if they can contain either the Los Angeles Clippers or the Houston Rockets, they'll be heading to the NBA Finals. There, they would be expected to dominate either the Hawks or Cavaliers.

The Grizzlies’ were a damn good team, but they might want to start taking three-point shots:

They gave the Warriors everything they could handle. Mike Conley was tough. Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol gave Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green a clinic down low at times. Tony Allen was "first team All-Defense." In an NBA where three-point shooting is the new normal, the Grizzlies have bucked new trends -- and it was almost enough to get to the Western Conference finals.

There may be some changes in the organization this offseason -- Gasol is a free agent -- but the Grizzlies are close. Will they change their style of play? As Sports Illustrated’s Ben Golliver points out, Curry hit 26 three-point shots in the series while the Grizzlies hit 25 as a team. That stat is at least one reason to look at taking a few more shots from deep.

So is this one. The top five teams in three-pointers made this season are as follows: Rockets, Warriors, Clippers, Cavaliers and Hawks.

The Eastern Conference finals doesn’t look like we thought it would:

Neither the Hawks nor the Cavaliers are at their best. Both teams streaked through points of the regular season, but are shells of their former selves. The Hawks have struggled to find the machine-like offense that powered them through the regular season.

The Cavaliers, meanwhile, have been decimated by injuries -- Kevin Love is out and Kyrie Irving is hobbled. This series will be like a poor-man's version of last year's NBA Finals: The Hawks attempt to play like the San Antonio Spurs and LeBron James will be asked to do it all. The action kicks off on Wednesday in Atlanta.