NBA Playoffs : Hawks Are Held to Six Points in 3rd Quarter, Lose to Celtics, 132-99

The Boston Celtics took care of a little problem that had bothered them Sunday and breezed into the third round of the playoffs.

In an awesome third quarter performance, the Celtics overwhelmed 5-6 Spud Webb and the Atlanta Hawks and romped to a 132-99 victory Tuesday night at Boston that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.

The Hawks, who rallied behind the little speedster Sunday to avoid a sweep in the second-round series, trailed by only 11 points at halftime in the finale.

The Celtics didn’t really get under way until the third quarter. In the most decisive period in playoff history, the amazing Celtics outscored the Hawks, 36-6.

In the last 5 1/2 minutes of the quarter, the Hawks, who were 2 for 19 for the 12 minutes, did not score a point while the Celtics were scoring 24 and building their lead to 102-61.

The six points represent the lowest total ever in a playoff, wiping out the eight the Lakers scored in 1972 against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Milwaukee Bucks.

Larry Bird, bouncing back from a poor performance in Game 4, led the scorers with 36 points, but Kevin McHale was the most devastating in the third quarter. He scored 16 points in the period, 10 of them in the 24-0 spurt.

Webb and Dominique Wilkins had led the Hawks to the win Sunday, but they were lost in the shuffle in this one. Webb led the Hawks with 15 points and had 8 assists. But Wilkins, the scoring champion, had only 13 points in just 22 minutes. Neither was in evidence when the Celtics made their overwhelming charge.

The Celtics have now won 37 in a row at home and can sit back and wait to find out whether they will play Milwaukee or Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference championship. The Bucks and 76ers are 2-2 in their best-of-seven series.

After it was over, McHale, who finished with 25 points, wasn’t quite sure it really happened.

“I don’t believe we held them to six points in the third quarter,” he said. “We were running and they were all confused. We looked at them. They just looked like a punch-drunk sailor.”

Atlanta Coach Mike Fratello was still in shock. “We just lost our concentration,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. You know the feeling. You try to substitute, you try to call timeouts, and hope to stem it that way.

“Other than that, there’s not much you can do. You can’t make trades during a game.”

Boston Coach K.C. Jones gave credit to the defense. “It was great effort on the defensive end,” he said. “That’s where the money is. I can’t recall if I’ve seen a quarter like that. It had to be 20 years ago.”

Except for the third quarter when they were 2 for 19, the Hawks shot 58% from the field.

Houston 131, Denver 103--The Twin Towers struck down the Nuggets at Houston to take a 3-2 lead in their playoff series. The Rockets can advance to the Western Conference championship round with a victory at Denver Thursday night.

Akeem Olajuwon had 36 points and 19 rebounds, and the other Tower, Ralph Sampson, had 33 points, 17 rebounds and 10 assists.

It was a close game for 13 minutes, the Rockets holding only a 32-30 lead. Then Olajuwon and Sampson took over. The Rockets ran off 11 points in a row and by halftime they had built the lead to 72-46.

Despite four three-pointers by Fat Lever in the second half, the Nuggets never were closer than 20 points the rest of the night.

Olajuwon was off to a terrible start. He missed his first five shots, three of them attempts to dunk. After that he was a sharpshooter, sinking 13 of his last 24 shots.

The Rockets lost both games played in Denver and they blamed the altitude.

“It was hard to run in that altitude,” Rocket reserve Mitchell Wiggins said. “We played two games and came up short. We decided to come back here and give it all we had. We got the rebounding, played tough defense and ran about as well as we can.”