A 24-point fiasco brought the Hawks back to reality quickly, and the last one-point win looked more like luck (the referee missed the Hawks defending twice for three seconds). In this game, the Hawks' main striker John Collins is still sluggish, playing in the 22nd minute game, he only had 11 points and 2 rebounds on 4-of-8 shooting but had 5 fouls. In such a fiasco, Collins' performance was a drop in the bucket for the Hawks.
In the last game, Collins's play was very sluggish. Although the Hawks narrowly won, he played 24 minutes, only 6 points and 5 rebounds on 2-of-6 shooting, and the help he gave to the team was very limited. In this game, Collins's play is so mediocre, and his play has been questioned a lot.
Can't blame the outside world for questioning, it is really because Collins has not played well in this series. In four games, he averaged only 10 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, ranking fifth on the team in points. Moreover, Collins' plus-minus of four games is a total of -45, which is really limited for the team.
So far in his career, Collins hasn't really proven himself in the playoffs.
Last season, he made his first playoff game and averaged 13.9 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, a big gap from the regular season average of 17.6 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. Although he has also blocked Philadelphia center Embiid, his overall performance is not ideal, especially when facing the Bucks' alphabet brother in the Eastern Conference Finals.
It is precisely because of this that the Eagles will be hesitant to renew his contract. But in the end, the Eagles gave him a big five-year, $125 million contract, hoping that the young man born in 1997 would play better.
But this season, Collins's play in the regular season has declined, averaging 30.8 minutes per game, and in the case of a slight increase in playing time compared with last season, he can only average 16.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, and the shooting rate and three-point shooting rate are not as good as last season. In his first season on a big contract, Collins looked like he was already slipping.
Now, collins in the playoffs are even more depressed, and the Hawks don't know if they regret giving Collins such a big contract?