Statement made?
It was the question on everybody’s mind: Does a 30-point win in Game 7 mean anything more than if the Celtics had snuck by the Hawks in a close one?
“I don’t know if it was a statement,” Celtics forward James Posey said. “In this situation, Game 7, you can either win or go home…We grinded it out, we stayed focused, and we didn’t give in.”
“We just had to come out here and play our best, because we haven’t been playing our best this whole series,” said Leon Powe.
Kevin Garnett seemed to take offense to all the statement talk.
“I just want everybody to know that Atlanta plays really well at home, and I am not going to discount nothing we did,” said Garnett. “I thought we played real good defense. I thought at times we made them take pressure shots. Atlanta played their asses off in this series, I am not going to discount nothing Joe Johnson did, or nothing Josh Smith did, or none of the other guys did. They played really hard for seven games.”
Guard Ray Allen said the playoffs are a new experience for this Celtics team as a unit.
“We’re all new to this situation together,” said Allen. “We’re learning how to use each other as a collective unit. We have to continue to find strengths in each other this next series.”
Paul Pierce agreed with Allen that the Celtics might have learned something because the series went to seven games.
“You have your small tests throughout the course of the regular season, but there is nothing like the playoffs,” said Pierce. “It’s the first time for us being together as a group in the playoffs, so I think as a team what we learned is the intensity, the focus, and the concentration you got to have, especially on the road. I think it is easy for us at home, we got the crowd behind you, you got energy, everything that is working for you, but on the road we definitely learned something on how we got to approach games when we go on the road…It was really good for this series to end up the way it ended up and I am real happy with the results.”
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