Hawks did all they could and still lost to the Cavaliers in Game 3

ATLANTA -- Jeff Teague had 14 assists and no turnovers after three quarters. Al Horford was 11 of 15 shooting from the field. Atlanta shot 47% from the three-point line. Kyle Korver came out of his postseason doldrums with 18 points.

And still the Hawks lost by 13 to the Cleveland Cavaliers, 121-108, in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals at Philips Arena.

“We’ve got to figure it out,” Korver said. “Keep on trying something new.”

The Hawks changed their starting lineup with Thabo Sefolosha replacing Korver. Forward Kris Humphries was the first player off the bench for Atlanta and thrilled the crowd with early offense.

It didn’t work. LeBron James just dished the ball around and the Cavs scored and scored.

Cavaliers top Hawks with another three-point barrage for 3-0 series lead

The Hawks even started the third quarter intentionally fouling Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson, a 63% free throw shooter to get a change of possession to keep the Cavs from shooting a three.

Cleveland made 21 of 39 three-point attempts, the first NBA team in history to make at least 20 threes in consecutive games in the playoffs or regular season, according to ESPN stats. The three was the ultimate trump card against the Hawks bag of tricks and remedies in this series.

“What we’ve done hasn’t worked,” Horford said. “We felt good about tonight. They just took it to another level in the fourth. For us, at the end of the day, if they keep shooting it like that, they are going to be unstoppable.

“We’re disappointed because we played a good game.”

The Hawks schemes did not account for Cleveland’s Channing Frye scoring 27 points in 28 minutes. Frye stretched the defense one way, while Kevin Love (21 points) stretched it another.

“Love and Frye playing out there at the same time, we didn’t prepare for that,” Horford said.

The Hawks goal was to make Cavs’ dribble the ball off the three-point line. Instead, Love and Frye used head fakes, and reset, and made their shots.

“We tried a couple coverages tonight that we’ve never really run before,” Korver said.

Here was the other issue for the Hawks. When they were not being burned by threes, they were burned by trees. Cleveland out-rebounded Atlanta, 55-28.

“I don’t think you can come in and quit, or not have the mentality of let’s just focus on one game and try to win this one game,” Humphries said. “It’s kind of a lot to think what you have to do beyond that one game.”