The Atlanta Hawks needed a win in the Highlight Factory to stand any chance of coming back against the Cleveland Cavaliers in their Eastern Conference semifinal series. But on Friday night, the Cavs just kept shredding the Hawks' defense, and almost certainly ended their title dreams.
Cavaliers vs. Hawks, NBA playoff results 2016: Cleveland up 3-0 after 121-108 torching
The Cavs are one win from the Eastern Conference Finals.
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Channing Frye torched the Hawks for 27 points off the bench, and Cleveland's Big Three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love combined for 69 points -- none scoring more than 24 or fewer than 21 on their own -- as the Cavaliers took a 121-108 victory and a commanding 3-0 lead in the series.
Atlanta kept this game close for far longer than it had stayed in range of the red-hot Cavs in two blowout losses in Cleveland, even leading entering the fourth quarter. But that quarter also brought a beatdown in which the Cavaliers outscored the Hawks 36-17, and the stretch run was another show of the defending Eastern Conference champions’ dominance.
Game 4 of the series will take place Sunday at 3:30 p.m., and given that the Cavs could get a week or more off if they close out the Hawks in Atlanta, it seems likely that they will be striving to shut the door.
1. Cleveland’s hot! Cleveland’s hot!
One game after setting an NBA record for threes in a game, the Cavs might have been expected to cool off on the road against a very good defensive team. Instead, they rained down another 21 threes, with Frye making a third of them.
Frye, a midseason acquisition for a Cavs team that scuffled for much of the early months of 2016, had made just three triples in the playoffs prior to Friday night. But if he can join Irving, Love, and J.R. Smith in sniping with accuracy, the Cavs' offense can be nigh unbeatable with James and Irving distributing the ball.
2. It’s over for Atlanta
No NBA team has ever recovered from a 3-0 deficit to win a best-of-seven playoff series, and these Hawks aren’t going to be the team to make history. Not against these Cavs, putting on as great a single-series shooting show as has ever been seen, and not with their best options seemingly helpless to stop the Cleveland onslaught.
Al Horford is a star who has verged on superstardom for the Hawks over the years, and he had a great game on Friday, with 24 points on 15 shots. He was also a staggering -26 in plus/minus. All of about three teams exist in the NBA that could beat the Cavs at this level of play, and they're all in the Western Conference. The Hawks? They would have to find a new level, and do it without Jeff Teague, who will assuredly be suspended for Game 4 after shoving LeBron into the stands.
3. Is this the best team in the playoffs?
The conventional wisdom of the NBA playoffs has been that the Cavs are one of four teams that can win a title. The Golden State Warriors are prohibitive favorites, and the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder would become favorites to the same degree if they could emerge from the West. But Cleveland is clicking to a degree that it hasn't since James returned to town, and with every piece apparently on the same chess board and moving toward a common goal, the Cavs have been dynamite in the playoffs.
Cleveland's scored 100 points in all seven of its playoff games so far, and has played just the minimum seven contests. Finish a sweep of the Hawks on Sunday, ambush a tired and less-talented Raptors or Heat team in a short conference finals series, and the Cavs could conceivably enter the NBA Finals well-rested and on fire.
While that still might not be enough against the best of the Warriors, Spurs, or Thunder, given how great all three teams are, it’s a whole lot better than what many thought the disjointed team that jettisoned coach David Blatt midseason could manage this spring.
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