The Cleveland Cavaliers made 25 -- TWENTY-FIVE! -- 3-pointers in Game 2 of their series against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday. No team had ever done that before in the playoffs or the regluar season.
As you might imagine, the Cavaliers were excited about this. Here is what the bench looked like when Dahntay Jones hit a 3-pointer to set the record:
The Hawks, it turns out, had a very different reaction. Some of them thought that Cleveland was being unprofessional, what with all the celebrating during a playoff blowout and all. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Chris Haynes:
"It's a certain way of being a professional," the Hawks' Paul Millsap said to cleveland.com. "I'm not mad about it, but just being professionals man. If that's how you want to approach it, that's how you approach it. I think our team and our organization has class and I don't think we would have continued to do that, but other organizations do other things so what can you do about it?"
Hawks big man Al Horford echoed his frontcourt mate's sentiments.
"We probably wouldn't do anything like that [if we were in that position]," he told cleveland.com. "...It's hard to say, but I would say no."
Kent Bazemore implied that what goes around, comes around.
"I'm a firm believer in karma," the small forward said to cleveland.com. "Maybe we'll be the team to break that record soon. Everyone knows how they play. They get out in front and they're a totally different team. It is what it is. We'll see them again. That wasn't Game 4. That was only Game 2. They still have to beat us two more times before they can really celebrate anything."
I'd guess that, if any of those comments will upset Cleveland, it's the Bazemore quote. The Cavaliers might even admit that they went a little too far, but surely won't take kindly to being called frontrunners.
My take: Atlanta doesn't have to like it, but Cleveland earned the right to jump around and scream. The Cavs did something that no team had ever done in NBA history, and they did it to a team that was one of the best in the league defensively throughout the regular season.
I'm all for the Hawks getting mad, though. This series hasn't been nearly as interesting as it could have been, and maybe this will give Atlanta some extra oomph in Game 3. A little drama bad blood is always good in the playoffs.
