NBA Playoff Recap: June 14, 2021

We come out of Monday with two 2-2 series. Here are some of the key reasons behind how we got here.

Atlanta Hawks 103, Philadelphia 76ers 100

Series tied 2-2

FINAL BOX SCORE

This game was a Tale of Two Halves. In the first half, it seemed that the 76ers were on their way to taking a 3-1 series lead back to Philadelphia. Then in the second half, the Hawks clawed back and ultimately edged out the visitors. After Game 3, I was worried that Philly’s size and skill advantage would be too much for Atlanta. But it looks like we have ourselves a series after all!

The Sixers were ahead 62-49 at halftime thanks to some staunch defense and a slight advantage inside. Philadelphia held the Hawks to 33.3 percent shooting from the field and 29.4 percent (5-of-17) from 3-point range. On the offensive end, Philly outscored Atlanta 26-18 in the paint and came away shooting 52.1 percent from the field and 63.6 percent (7-of-11) from 3-point range.

Atlanta completely turned the tide in the second half, outscoring the 76ers 54-38 in the final two periods. The Hawks mainly accomplished this by cranking up their defensive intensity. They locked down the paint and hassled Sixer shooters on the perimeter. As a result, the Hawks held Philly to 32.4 percent shooting from the field and 25.0 percent (4-of-16) shooting from beyond the arc in the second half.

Atlanta also turned up their offensive aggression, battling with Philadelphia’s bigger bodies inside. They outscored the 76ers 22-8 in the paint and 15-2 in second chance points. Atlanta also forced seven turnovers in the half while only conceding two of their own.

The Hawks offense wasn’t even all that efficient in the second half, going 40.0 percent from the field and 30.4 percent from distance. They just grinded their way back into the game and did enough to overtake the 76ers down the stretch.

Trae Young embodied the previous sentence in his statline. He finished with 25 points on 8-of-26 shooting and 18 assists. Young had just eight points on 3-of-12 shooting in the first half, then “bounced back” with 17 points on 5-of-14 shooting and 6-of-6 from the free throw line. Despite his shooting struggles, he stayed engaged and continued to orchestrate his team’s offense: He had nine assists each in both halves.

Joel Embiid, on the other hand, didn’t quite have it. He finished with 17 points, 21 rebounds, and four assists. That sounds great, right? Well, he reached his point total on 4-of-20 shooting! That’s 0-of-4 in the first quarter, 4-of-4 in the second, and then 0-of-12 in the second half!

Embiid, still working his way through a meniscus injury, looked out of sorts for most of this game. On top of that, there just wasn’t enough offensive cohesion from his teammates in the second half to stave off the charging Hawks. As the clock marched towards the final buzzer, Philadelphia’s sizable halftime continued to dwindle until it was eventually gone.

Los Angeles Clippers 118, Utah Jazz 104

Series tied 2-2

FINAL BOX SCORE

The Clippers set the tone for this game early with a 30-13 first quarter lead. They eventually grew their lead to 51-22 with 5:20 left in the second quarter. At that point, LA was shooting 45.5 percent from the field, 47.1 percent (8-of-17) from 3, and 13-of-15 from the free throw line. They did so while holding Utah to 25.8 percent from the field, 18.8 percent (3-of-16) from long range, and just 3-of-4 from the stripe.

To Utah’s credit, they fought the rest of the way to close this gap. They outscored LA 82-67 over the final 29:20 of game time. Donovan Mitchell, despite showing occasional signs that his right ankle sprain from Saturday was bothering him, paced his team with 37 points. That’s made this his franchise-record-tying sixth consecutive 30-point playoff game.

By the final buzzer, despite recovering offensively, the Jazz had committed too many fouls to effectively overcome their deficit. Utah racked up 32 fouls to LA’s 24 by game’s end. Every Jazz starter had at least four fouls. That led to 38 free throw attempts for the Clippers and 26 for the Jazz. LA outscored them 31-21 from the charity stripe.

This game may have been decided very early on, but in different ways it showed me that neither team has any “back down” in them. If either side wants to win this series, they’re truly going to have to fight for it. We have ourselves a true meeting of top-tier Western Conference teams.