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Hawks players not too happy about Cavaliers’ celebrations in Game 2

Cavaliers matching suits
Courtesy of Ken Blaze, USA Today Sports

The Atlanta Hawks couldn’t do anything to stop what the Cleveland Cavaliers threw their way during Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals on Wednesday.

Trailing 74-38 at the half, Atlanta saw Cleveland nail a ridiculous 17 three-pointers before intermission en route to breaking the single-game NBA record with 25.

At the end of the night, the Hawks found themselves in a 2-0 series hole following an embarrassing 123-98 loss.

While the team’s official Twitter account might have been in a joking mood during the game, Hawks players didn’t seem too thrilled by Cleveland’s in-game reactions the day after the fact:

“I’m a firm believer in karma,” up-and-coming small forward Kent Bazemore told the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Thursday. “Maybe we’ll be the team to break that record soon. Everyone knows how they play. They get out in front and they’re a totally different team. It is what it is. We’ll see them again. That wasn’t Game 4. That was only Game 2. They still have to beat us two more times before they can really celebrate anything.”

The celebrations were obvious late in the second half, especially when a couple seldom-used Cavs bench players nailed threes:

https://vine.co/v/ixxjAavU5Hv

To be clear, there was a certain level of clowning going on during the game.

Big man Paul Millsap agreed with that sentiment:

“It’s a certain way of being a professional,” Millsap said. “I’m not mad about it, but just being professionals man. If that’s how you want to approach it, that’s how you approach it. I think our team and our organization has class and I don’t think we would have continued to do that, but other organizations do other things so what can you do about it?”

There might be something said about professionalism, but these are professional athletes. We aren’t talking about handing out participation ribbons to school children here. Isn’t part of your job actually to stop the other team from embarrassing you?

Besides, Millsap can’t actually tell us how his team would respond to such outstanding play. It’s not like the Hawks have reached the heights of the Cavaliers in recent seasons, right?

Despite this, there was at least one other Hawks player that took exception to the Cavaliers’ in-game celebrations:

“We probably wouldn’t do anything like that (celebrate),” Al Horford said. “It’s hard to say, but I would say no.”

At least Horford is acknowledging that it’s nearly impossible for his team to draw a conclusion about how it would act in a similar situation.

In defense of his team, two-time NBA champion LeBron James brought up a rather good point in all this:

“So if the Warriors are at 72 wins, they shouldn’t go for 73?”

James, always wanting to bring the Warriors into the conversation, is definitely not wrong here. Cleveland didn’t break the record until the team’s reserves were in the game in the final stanza.

In any event, this promises to bring more intrigue to what has been a lopsided affair between the two sides.

Cleveland leads the series 2-0 heading into Atlanta for Game 3 this weekend. It will be interesting to see how hot tempers run in that one.

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