Washington Wizards big man Nene outmuscled Mike Muscala and rose above Al Horford for a huge jam Monday night, but it was not enough as the Atlanta Hawks tied up the Eastern Conference semifinal series at 2-2.
Jeff Teague (26 points) led the Hawks to the huge 106-101 victory; Paul Millsap added 19 points, six assists and five rebounds, and Horford had 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Paul Pierce had a chance to even things up late in the fourth quarter, but bricked a wide-open three pointer.
Per the AP:
“That’s how we play. That’s how we’ve been playing all year,” forward Paul Millsap said. “Things we didn’t do, pretty much all series, we did tonight.”
“To me, personally, I think this is the best we’ve played all series,” said Millsap, who had eight points in Game 3, when he was dropped from the starting lineup because of flu-like symptoms. “Thirty assists, the way we played defense, the way we stepped up, the way we helped each other, the way we moved the basketball, the way we set screens.”
Two days after hitting a buzzer-beater to win Game 3, Washington’s Paul Pierce missed a 3-point attempt that would have tied the score coming out of a timeout with 9.5 seconds left. […] “Thought I got a great look,” Pierce said. […] Said Bradley Beal, who scored a career playoff-high 34 points for the Wizards: “I thought it was going in. … That open one’s always the hardest one to make.”
