For the fourth straight game in this Eastern Conference semifinal, Paul Pierce had a chance to shoot for the tie or the win in the closing seconds. For the fourth straight game,
the Washington Wizards got the ball into the hands of the future Hall of Famer, the veteran they signed last summer for his swagger and shot-making, and asked him to keep their dream alive.

He made the shot. He just didn't make it fast enough.

With 6.4 seconds left in Friday's do-or-die Game 6, the Wizards trailed the Atlanta Hawks by three points, 94-91, and needed another miracle to stave off elimination. Shooting guard Bradley Beal, Washington's top gun throughout this second-round series and a dead-eye shotmaker [url=http://www.officialcardinalsmlbshop.com/authentic-5-albert-pujols-jersey.ht... Pujols Black Jersey
who'd scored 13 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter, inbounded the ball to backcourt mate John Wall. DeMarre Carroll, the Hawks' top perimeter stopper, was all over the All-Star point guard from the moment he caught the ball, hounding him above the 3-point arc and forcing precious seconds off the clock.

Wall dribbled to the middle of the floor, then pitched the ball back to his left to the 37-year-old Pierce, just above the break on the left wing. "The Truth" dribbled hard to his left, taking a bump from Atlanta's Kyle Korver, then leapt, faded and released. The ball splashed through the net with the clock reading triple-zero, sending the Verizon Center [url=http://www.officialcardinalsmlbshop.com/authentic-45-bob-gibson-jersey.html... Gibson Kids Jersey[/url]
crowd into hysterics at the prospect of a season-extending overtime ... and sending the referees to the replay review monitor to check to see if Pierce had gotten the shot off in time.

As the officials huddled at the scorer's table, ESPN's broadcast replays relayed the news to the audience watching at home: The ball still rested on Pierce's fingertips as the red light came on to signal the end of the fourth quarter.

And just like that, with a wave of the official's arms, the Hawks had successfully fended off Washington's furious rally from a 15-point deficit and eliminated the Wizards, four games to two. [url=http://www.officialraysshop.com/authentic-8-desmond-jennings-jersey.html]ht... advances to the NBA's final four for the first time since 1970, when they were still in the Western Division. They'll take on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who eliminated the Chicago Bulls on Thursday, in the Eastern Conference finals.

After leading the Hawks with a playoff-career-high 25 points on 9-for-14 shooting, Carroll was asked after the game whether he thought that the final shot from Pierce — the scourge of Toronto, the bank-shot braveheart of Game 3, who came up just short in[url=http://www.officialraysshop.com/authentic-3-evan-longoria-jersey.html]htt... Game 4 and saw Al Horford steal his thunder in Game 5 — had once again come just in time.

"Nah, I knew it wasn't good when it left his hand," said Carroll, who added 10 rebounds, two steals, an assist and stellar perimeter defense, to ESPN's Chris Broussard. "I heard somebody screaming, 'SHOOT IT!' So I knew then it wasn't good.

"But man, he hit so many big shots," Carroll added, smiling in spite of himself. "It's crazy."

(Carroll would sing a slightly different tune in the winner's locker room after the game.)

It is crazy, and it's brutal, and it's another one for the record books. The Washington professional basketball franchise has now lost seven straight home playoff games when facing elimination — a mark that now features Game 6 losses to the East's top seed on the same date in consecutive years — and has not advanced to a seventh game in a postseason series since the 1979 Eastern Conference finals.

Three of the Wizards' four losses in this series — Game 4, in which Pierce missed a wide-open 3; Game 5, in which the Wizards (chiefly Nene, but perhaps also Pierce, depending on who you ask) failed to box out Horford on the pivotal final play; and Friday's Game 6 — came by a combined nine points. Each was decided in the final six seconds. That's it. That's the difference.

The Hawks opened up the game intent on pounding Washington on the glass and hustling back in transition to keep Wall, still a major threat despite playing with five nondisplaced fractures in his left hand and wrist, from working his magic in the open floor. Atlanta controlled the action on the interior early, with Horford and Millsap outdueling Nene and Marcin Gortat, the latter of whom would play just 12 minutes after apparently falling very ill on Thursday.

Things changed, somewhat surprisingly, when Randy Wittman went to his bench and reached for Kevin Seraphin, the offense-first French reserve big man who had made just two appearances and seen just over 10 minutes of floor time in the series. He paired with Drew Gooden to help clamp down on the Hawks, limiting them to just 3-for-16 shooting to finish out the first quarter, and sparked a 13-4 run capped by a Seraphin buzzer-beater that had the Wizards up 20-19 after 12 minutes.

The Wiz began to get the better of the boards midway through the second. Long-armed spark-plug swingman Otto Porter, a revelation this postseason, outworked Atlanta on the offensive glass to create multiple extra chances and a pair of additional buckets that helped keep the game tight even as Washington's offense — particularly the non-Wall, Beal and Seraphin parts — flagged.

The Hawks began to create some distance late, though. Millsap punished the older, slower and smaller Pierce, scoring 10 of his 20 points and grabbing five of his 13 rebounds in the second. Carroll snuck past the Wizards' interior defenders for a pair of late offensive rebounds and putbacks, and Millsap banked in a buzzer-beater that gave Atlanta a 45-39 halftime lead.

Atlanta came out of intermission firing, scoring four straight to push their lead to double digits, and continued to attack Pierce. This time, Carroll was the beneficiary, using his quickness to beat Pierce off the bounce and get himself to the line while also canning a pair of triples, scoring 13 points on 4-for-5 shooting in the stanza.

After a Gortat miss in the lane, the Hawks pushed the pace. The Wizards hustled back, but nobody matched up and stopped the ball, letting Jeff Teague get right to the rim to push the Atlanta lead to 14 with just under eight minutes left in the third: