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5/3/13 Hawks ditch practice after ugly Game 5 vs Pacers | Boston Herald
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Hawks ditch practice afterugly Game 5 vs PacersFriday, May 3, 2013
Associated Press
ATLANTA — After a dismal playoff performance, the Atlanta Hawksdecided it was best to spend some time away from each other.
The team arrived at Philips Arena for what was expected to be aregular practice and film session Thursday, a chance to prepare for amust-win game against the Indiana Pacers. Instead, coach Larry Drewspoke briefly with the players and sent them home.
No practice. No watching film.
"I know our guysare not justphysically fatiguedbut I think they'rementally fatiguedas well," Drew said."I wanted to justallow these guys tokind of get away,kind of regroup,kind of recharge alittle bit as we'regetting ready forGame 6. I broughtthem in and spoke
to them. But I just really felt the best thing today was to get away fromit, get away from us, get away from everybody and get ready fortomorrow."
The Hawks certainly weren't ready for Game 5.
Indiana reasserted the physical dominance it showed in the first twogames, romping to a 106-83 win and a 3-2 lead in the series. ThePacers can wrap things up with a win Friday night in Atlanta.
More troubling for the Hawks was not only losing the game, but losingtheir cool. Three players — Josh Smith, Jeff Teague and IvanJohnson — picked up technical fouls for griping to the officials. Twomore technicals were whistled for defensive 3-second calls.
In all, it was a total collapse by a team that had played with suchenergy and control during the two previous games in Atlanta.
Now, the Hawks can only hope to extend the streak of the home teamwinning every game in the series, which would force a Game 7 atIndianapolis on Sunday. It's still a rather bleak scenario — Atlanta haslost all three games in Indy by an average of more than 18 points —but that's the only path they have.
"There does come a point where it stops being about X's and O's,"Drew said. "That's where we are. It's a two-game series and obviouslywe want to extend it by winning. But X's and O's, it won't be aboutthat. It will be about how hard we play between those lines, how hard
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5/3/13 Hawks ditch practice after ugly Game 5 vs Pacers | Boston Herald
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More On: Atlanta Hawks Indiana Pacers
NBA Southeast Division Larry Drew Josh Smith Jeff Teague
we compete."
The Pacers are in a much more enviable position, obviously, knowingthey can win the series without winning a game down south.
But coach Frank Vogel would like to see his young team take animportant step in its development process by stealing one on theroad. Indiana is still finding its way in the postseason, which wasevident during its two losses in Atlanta, one of them a 21-pointblowout that was over by halftime. This may be the last time thePacers have a home-court edge, so they need to find a way to get itdone outside of their cozy, raucous fieldhouse.
More daunting, Indiana hasn't won in Atlanta since 2006, a 13-gamelosing streak that provides another mental stumbling block.
"You can't look at it like we've lost 13 in a row there or two in a rowthere," Vogel said before the team boarded its flight. "We have tolook at it like they're a different team at home. They're really, reallygood at home and we've made some adjustments that we hope willhelp."
Vogel changed the rotations for Game 5, keeping some starters withthe second unit to provide extra scoring punch. David West playedhis best game of the series, scoring 24 points, while Paul Georgeadded 21 points and 10 rebounds.
But the biggest change came at the defensive end, where the Pacersfinally looked like one of the NBA's stingiest teams. They held theHawks to 33 percent shooting — by far their worst showing of theseries — and rarely gave Atlanta a decent look. Smith and Al Horford— the main inside threats — combined to shoot 10 of 30. Guard JeffTeague, the catalyst for the offense, was a dismal 3 of 16. No one onthe Hawks scored more than 14 points.
"I don't know if they did anything differently," said Atlanta Kyle Korver,who never found much of an opening for his specialty, the 3-pointshot. "They just played at a high level. That was the best gamethey've played. We didn't get any easy looks, even on the fastbreaks. We had a lot of tough layups. We had some close shots, butthey were still contested. We never really got into a good offensiverhythm."
With each missed shot, the Hawks bickered more and more with theofficials.
The two things Drew had preached before the game — composureand playing smart — went totally out the window in the second half asthe Pacers pulled away.
"We went into a hostile environment knowing that Indiana would comeout and give us their best shot," the coach said. "We have to be ableto respond to it. The way to respond is not to lose our composure,and we did. We lost our composure."
Atlanta actually shot two more free throws than the Pacers in Game 5,which makes the meltdown even more perplexing to Drew.
"The way we went at the officials, it's like we're playing the blamegame again," he said. "I thought we got some great whistles. We gotto the foul line as many times as they did. It wasn't the whistles. It wasthe way we responded. That's not the way to get it done in theplayoffs. You've got to be much tougher mentally, you've got to bemuch stronger, you've got to be thick-skinned. You can't let thingsrattle you."
Maybe some time away from each other will help.
___
AP Sports Writer Mike Marot in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
___
Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963
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5/3/13 Hawks ditch practice after ugly Game 5 vs Pacers | Boston Herald
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