Celts win

You can stop hoarding canned goods and bottled water and climb out of the basement bunker now. Apparently there will be no apocalypse.
The natural order of the world reasserted itself on Wednesday as the top-seeded Celtics said enough already and soundly beat the Hawks 110-85 to take a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven first-round series. Boston can advance to the second round with a win on Friday in Atlanta's suddenly boisterous Philips Arena.
Playoff Schedule
WEST FIRST ROUND
Los Angeles 4, Denver 0Lakers advance
New Orleans 4, Dallas 1Hornets advance
San Antonio 4, Phoenix 1Spurs advance
Utah 3, Houston 1Game 6: Fri., 10:30 ET, at UTA
EAST FIRST ROUNDBoston 3, Atlanta 2Game 6: Fri., 8 ET, at ATL
Detroit 3, Philadelphia 2Game 6: Thu., 8 ET, at PHI
Cleveland 3, Washington 2Game 6: Fri., 7 ET, at WAS
Orlando 4, Toronto 1Magic advance
• The full playoff schedule For Boston, the key was dialing up the intensity after coasting through the final month and a half of the season. The Celtics came out strong on both ends, doubling Joe Johnson on the first possession, holding the Hawks to four fast-break points, and getting a bounce-back game from Paul Pierce (22 points) to cruise to the easy win.
"Obviously, a better game," said Boston coach Doc Rivers. "The execution was as crisp and sound as we've had in a month and the defense was terrific."
Certainly there's little doubt which is the better team -- it was the sixth time in eight meetings this year that the Celtics beat the Hawks by double figures. Nonetheless, Atlanta was in reach midway through the third quarter at 60-54 before a barrage of Boston 3-pointers put the game away. Ray Allen made three and James Posey one at the buzzer in a 21-10 run to close the period, putting Boston up by 17 entering the fourth.
However, one could argue the key stretch of the game came much earlier. The Celtics led by 15 at the half thanks largely to the inspired play of reserve Leon Powe, who scored seven points, was responsible for six offensive boards (one officially went down as a team rebound) and took two charges in a 14-minute stint. Boston was a +10 with Powe on the floor in the half.
"I thought offensively and his rebounding was great," said Doc Rivers. "Individually he was great on defense. Team defense he still has a way to go but he's getting it and he's getting better."
I'll say. Powe's positive plays included the game's most crucial one. At 4:26 of the first quarter, he stepped in front of a driving Joe Johnson to draw his second foul, sending Johnson to the bench.
That foul became huge because of an unnecessarily conservative reaction by Hawks' coach Mike Woodson. Johnson only played 13:16 in the first half even though he has one of the lowest foul rates in basketball -- he averaged only 2.01 fouls per 40 minutes in the regular season. Johnson didn't pick up another foul the rest of the night and finished with two.
After the charge, Johnson sat out for a stretch of 9:25, during which the Celtics extended a three-point lead to 13 points. He came back in with 1:53 left in the half, at which time a 12-point lead jumped to 15 at the break.
This is straight out of the Larry Brown school of foul-trouble conservatism -- not surprising since Woodson was Brown's assistant in Detroit and has been proudly wearing his championship ring all series. Indeed, Al Horford and Josh Smith also sat out the final minute of the first half with two fouls, just as they had done for the final three and a half minutes of the first half in Game 4.
"It's still a long game," said Woodson. "I didn't think the game was out of reach. He still played 34 minutes; he's been playing about 40 a game in this series.
"I just didn't want to him to pick up the third, and then start the third quarter where he might pick up a quick one, and then he really has to go to the bench. I don't think that was a factor because we still made a nice run in the third quarter where we cut the lead to six and then it got away again."
Woodson's right about one thing -- it wasn't a factor ultimately. Atlanta got rolled tonight, and eight more minutes of Joe Johnson wasn't going to flip a 25-point scoreboard margin. And Johnson himself didn't seem that upset about the move when I talked to him.
Instead, it was Atlanta's poor half-court execution that had the team perplexed, as their road struggles -- they're now 12-32 on the season -- again reared their ugly head.
"I just thought we were sloppy offensively again tonight, really a carbon copy of the first two games we played here," said Woodson.
"We're not very disciplined on the road running our offense, or getting into sets, or moving the basketball," said Johnson.
Yep, that pretty much covers it. The truth about the Hawks all season has been that they're pretty good when they can run and pretty unsightly when they can't; and that they tend to run a lot more at home than on the road. Ergo, they had a 13-game difference between home and road, the largest in the Eastern Conference.
That gives the Hawks some hope heading into Friday, but even if they prevail one can hardly imagine them winning in the Gah-den -- they've yet to play a competitive game here in five tries this season