Celtics Have No Answers for Hawks Defense and Tuesday NBA Playoff Takeaways

With nine minutes, 33 seconds remaining, Terry Rozier received a tough transition feed from Evan Turner and found the bottom of the net on a reverse layup, giving the Boston Celtics their 50th and 51st points of the night.

This wasn't in the second quarter. It wasn't even in the third. The C's couldn't break past the half-century mark against the Atlanta Hawks' stifling defense until less than 10 minutes remained in the entire game. 

By the time the final buzzer rang and signaled the end of Atlanta's 89-72 Game 2 victory, Boston had to be seriously demoralized. Its offense had been thoroughly destroyed for 48 straight minutes—the product of Atlanta's interior efforts and an inability to do anything but play into the hands of the East's No. 4 seed. 

The Hawks blocked 15 shots on the night, including four from Paul Millsap and another five from Al Horford. Those two bigs controlled the paint whenever they were on the floor, using their quick hands to alter attempts and rack up rejections when they weren't disrupting passing lanes. 

Better still, they managed to come up with opportune stops that led to transition buckets, like this perfect display of verticality from Horford that turned into a quick basket from the speedy Jeff Teague: 

Highlight plays also managed to prevent Boston from earning any semblance of momentum.

Even when it seemed like Isaiah Thomas was going to speed to the rim and lay up an easy deuce to cut the lead to single digits, Millsap was there to provide help and staple the attempt to the backboard. All night, Atlanta refused to allow any uncontested buckets, forcing a limited Celtics outfit to work tirelessly for any semblance of space. 

And when fundamental excellence greets you at every turn, that's a rather difficult proposition. 

Take this third-quarter play from Horford as an example. Caught between a driving Thomas and his own assignment, he managed to stick with his man just long enough to prevent an early pass, close out just enough to prevent a shot and then use his quick hands to force yet another Boston turnover. 

How many big men not only have the presence of mind to make this play but also the requisite skill?

The Celtics mustered up only seven points in the first quarter to set a rather ignominious postseason record, per Basketball-Reference.com (via CBS Sports' Matt Moore). By halftime, they'd recorded just 28 and went scoreless for over five minutes before retreating back into the Philips Arena locker room. They'd even hit just one of their 13 attempts from beyond the three-point arc. 

The final total of 72 points—the 12th-lowest postseason tally in the last five years—wasn't particularly impressive, either. 

Some of this was merely shoddy shooting from the visiting team. But the Hawks also implemented a system designed to force the Celtics into their weakest areas.

This isn't a strong three-point-shooting squad, but it still fired up 28 treys throughout the night and made only five of them. With Horford and Millsap controlling the interior, the Atlanta wings were able to provide help and leave their assignments, daring them to fire up perimeter attempts. Almost without fail, Boston took the bait and quickly found itself in precarious positions. 

During the regular season, the Celtics shot just 33.5 percent from downtown—better than only the marks of the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Lakers. That's already problematic against a defense adept at taking away close-range opportunities, and they were missing two of their three best perimeter marksmen: 

Player	3PA per Game	3P%
Kelly Olynyk	3.0	40.5
Avery Bradley	5.4	36.1
Isaiah Thomas	5.7	35.9

With Avery Bradley possibly out for the series due to a hamstring injury and Kelly Olynyk's shoulder giving him an uncertain timetable, there's no telling how deep a hole Boston could dig itself. 

A 2-0 deficit is by no means insurmountable, especially with both teams traveling to the TD Garden for Friday's Game 3. But with limited shooters and an opposing defense doing everything in its power to force the action toward the perimeter, the Celtics need to quickly figure something out. 

Sure, Thomas won't go 4-of-15 from the field again. Jae Crowder won't score only two points on nine shot attempts, even if he's looked like a mere shell of himself ever since suffering an ankle injury against the Houston Rockets on March 11. 

Jason Getz-USA TODAY Sports

However, it's not like the Hawks were lighting up the scoreboard on offense. Millsap and Kent Bazemore combined to make only three of their 26 shots from the field, and there's a better-than-decent chance they'll improve on those numbers when the series moves to Beantown. 

Atlanta still won by 17 points.

And if head coach Brad Stevens can't make serious adjustments designed to poke holes in the opposition's seemingly impenetrable interior, this series will feature more games with a similar margin before the Hawks advance to the next round. 

Grizzlies Can't Get It Going

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Even though the Memphis Grizzlies are one of the NBA's newer franchises, they played in their 67th playoff game Tuesday. During each of the previous 66, they'd scored at least 70 points, with the low mark coming in an 87-70 loss to the San Antonio Spurs during the 2004 postseason.

Now, the Spurs have rewritten the opposing franchise's record books by holding the Grizz to a putrid 68 points in a "game" that featured a final margin of 26. Throughout the contest, San Antonio showcased its suffocating shutdown ability, preventing its foe from generating any easy looks while capitalizing on woeful perimeter shooting. 

When the fourth quarter drew to its merciful conclusion, Memphis had gone 28-of-86 from the field, 2-of-14 from beyond the arc and 10-of-18 from the free-throw line. Throw in only 14 assists to 13 turnovers and one gets an accurate picture of just how miserable this performance was from start to finish. 

As ESPN.com's Kevin Pelton helped explain, a yawning David Robinson basically summed it all up: 

In fact, it seemed as if Robinson had advised the Spurs before this contest, while Latrell Sprewell was in Memphis' ear. 

The Grizzlies aren't going to escape from such an uninspired showing without us poking fun at how bad their offense was Tuesday night. When Tony Allen (12 points) is your leading scorer, you're probably not feeling too hunky-dory about what went down. 

In the last five years, only four playoff teams have scored fewer points for a single outing. During the same span, this was just the 33rd time a squad hit two triples or fewer—an almost inconceivably low total as the three-ball continues its league-wide proliferation. 

To be fair, this isn't a David vs. Goliath situation. It's much worse than that. Imagine Goliath on steroids and armed with a machine gun, while David was wearing a blindfold and battling the flu.

After all, some possessions have made it seem like the Grizzlies really are playing without the benefit of vision: 

The Spurs remain one of the greatest teams in NBA history, playing at full strength while coming off a regular season in which they outscored the opposition by a mind-numbing 11.3 points per 100 possessions. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies limped to the finish line and posted a net rating of minus-8.4 during their final 20 outings. 

Even if Marc Gasol and Mike Conley miraculously regained their health, it wouldn't make a difference. This series was as close to being over as possible before it started, and the Spurs have left no doubt they're on a mission by trailing for a combined 25 seconds during Games 1 and 2. 

As the series heads to Beale Street, Memphis can be optimistic the margins will shrink, and it'll at least scare its opponents before elimination comes calling. But a persistent, nagging fear also must be present in the back of its collective mind. 

Awful as the first two games have been, what if the worst is yet to come? The talent gap between these two outfits is that significant. 

Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @fromal09.

Unless otherwise indicated, all stats are from Basketball-Reference.com or Adam's databases.