![]() Fratello, who had been pumping up ’Nique up on the bench the whole time- “We need you to close the game, Dominique. Both Webb and Rivers had been chasing Ainge and Dennis Johnson all night. His teammates were playing hard without him and were hanging on, chipping away slowly at Boston’s lead.īut they were tired. “But then I missed lay-up after lay-up after jump shot.”įor much of the third quarter and the start of the fourth, Wilkins sat and waited. ![]() “I missed my first couple of shots, but I was still feeling pretty good,” Wilkins said after the game. Sensing a tipping point, coach Mike Fratello sat Wilkins to give him time to refocus. He’d gotten off to a 5-for-19 start from the floor and was completely out of sync, dragging his team down with him. Making matters worse for the Hawks, Wilkins was having a horrific night. The Celtics put the full weight of their home court advantage on Atlanta and led 77-69 after three quarters. Bird had 22, McHale had 19, and Dennis Johnson had 20. He scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds. From the outset, you could tell that “The Chief” Robert Parish was angry (and you don’t want The Chief to be angry). The very next night, facing a pissed off Larry Bird (who dropped 30) in Game 4, Dominique put up a 40 spot, leading the Hawks to a win and tying the series at 2-2.īoth teams then traveled the 1,000 miles north to Boston for Game 5. They won a meat grinder of a battle in Game 3, 110-92, behind 25 points from Dominique and 13 assists from Spud Webb. The Hawks, as the Dylan Thomas poem advised, did not go gentle into that good night. Being down 0-2 to the Celtics left them with very few options: win two in a row (not likely) split at home (hopefully), which would mean at least one elimination Game 5 in Boston or (worst-case scenario) get swept. This was not the position the Hawks wanted to be in. Then they lost Game 2 in the Garden 108-97. Unsurprisingly, the Hawks lost Game 1 at the Boston Garden 110-101. The same core group won NBA Championships in ’81, ’84, and ’86, lost to the Lakers in the ’87 Finals, and were Finals-ready again in ’88.Īs for the Hawks, they had Dominique and a few nice players like Kevin Willis (one all-star nod), Doc Rivers (one all-star nod), and Spud Webb, but to put it mildly, they weren’t in the same class as the Celtics. They had Larry Bird (hall of famer), Kevin McHale (hall of famer), Robert Parish (hall of famer), Dennis Johnson (hall of famer), Danny Ainge (all-star), and a young stud named Reggie Lewis on the bench. The Celtics won seven more regular-season games than Atlanta. In ’88, the Hawks had their third straight fifty-win season, and after beating the Bucks in round one (Dominique averaged 31 per game), they made their third straight Conference Semifinals, once again facing Boston. The following year, Dominique led Atlanta to a franchise-record fifty-seven wins, but the team lost the Conference Semifinals in five games again, this time to the Pistons. It’s this latter scenario where our intrepid hero, Dominique Wilkins, found himself in the 1988 postseason.Īfter the fifty-win season in ’86, the Hawks lost to the Celtics in five games in the Conference Semifinals. Having a clutch Game 7 against a decent team with a single all-star is one thing having a clutch Game 7 against a squad bursting with hall of famers in the midst of a dynasty is another. ![]() Oh, and there’s one more factor that can either raise or lower the potential for a history-making performance: are you facing a worthy opponent in your Game 7? There are very few NBA third-degree black belts. Getting the chance to play in any of these three situations is like going through the trials to earn your NBA playoff superstar black belt: first degree, second degree, and third degree. This means that every year in the NBA playoffs, there are only three opportunities in which the stakes can’t be higher in a series for both teams: For instance, a monster Game 5 performance in the first round of the playoffs will be more memorable than a monster Game 1 performance in the first round, and so on. ![]() These performances become more memorable the higher the stakes of the game. And although Dominique Wilkins had plenty of signature achievements (dunk titles, a scoring title, all-star games, all-NBA selections, and more), as the postseason unfolded in 1988, he didn’t have that go-to, instantly memorable playoff performance that every transcendent NBA player tends to have. To paraphrase the great Doc Brown, signature games by NBA superstars are like bolts of lightning – you never know when or where they’re going to strike. Excerpt from Windmills & Tomahawks: Nine Chapters on Dominique Wilkins by Jon Finkel
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