Mercy

That'd be tonight's buzzword, from Tommy complaining about the "mercy officiating" shown to the Hawks (he was more right than wrong), to the look Mike Bibby's face as he stood at the line in the fourth quarter, down 20 and showered with boos, to the point around the three-minute mark in the final frame when the C's finally, finally started yanking their A-list. Celtics win, 96-77: that sound you hear is absolutely no one gasping with surprise. This series is getting ugly fast: watching the C's play the Hawks is like watching a housecat slowly mutilate some sort of small animal, keeping it alive for the sole purpose of toying with it. The Hawks, obviously, dislike being in this position and have rebelled by playing atrocious basketball that borders on the dangerous, from Paul Pierce being mauled by Josh Smith in the first (a flagrant foul if ever there was one; he seems okay but sweet jeebus, keep him in your prayers) to KG being wrecked in the fourth, again by Smith. Like Game One, this contest was never very close and would have certainly been even less so if not for an uncharacteristically poor shooting night for Garnett (6-18 from the floor). Rondo continues to play out of his mind (12 points, 8 assists, 6 boards), and Boston again wielded a hyper-balanced attack, with five players in double figures. Atlanta looked terrible, particularly in the second half, when any semblance of a game plan went out the window and most players seemed to openly quit on Mike Woodson. Yikes. We'll see if Dr. Rivers' decision to continue playing KG, Allen and Pierce with the game well in hand leads to any shit-talking shenanigans; I for one am endlessly amused by the bizarre, entirely unexpected Mike Bibby-Kendrick Perkins feud. This series needs more in the way of ludicrous off-court subplots, since the games themselves have been a bit, um, one-sided. See you in Atlanta! (Not literally)