CLEVELAND, Ohio - A few of the Atlanta Hawks players spoke to cleveland.com after Wednesday's 123-98 rout by the Cleveland Cavaliers and voiced their objection with the way the Cavaliers went about breaking the 3-point record.

The Cavaliers made 25 on the night, the most in NBA history for a game, playoff or regular-season.

"It's a certain way of being a professional," the Hawks' Paul Millsap said to cleveland.com. "I'm not mad about it, but just being professionals man. If that's how you want to approach it, that's how you approach it. I think our team and our organization has class and I don't think we would have continued to do that, but other organizations do other things so what can you do about it?"

Hawks big man Al Horford echoed his frontcourt mate's sentiments.

"We probably wouldn't do anything like that [if we were in that position]," he told cleveland.com. "...It's hard to say, but I would say no."

Kent Bazemore implied that what goes around, comes around.

"I'm a firm believer in karma," the small forward said to cleveland.com. "Maybe we'll be the team to break that record soon. Everyone knows how they play. They get out in front and they're a totally different team. It is what it is. We'll see them again. That wasn't Game 4. That was only Game 2. They still have to beat us two more times before they can really celebrate anything."

All three players insisted they weren't upset, but their remarks suggested they were at least a little irritated. TNT analyst Charles Barkley said the Hawks should have taken the Cavaliers out for trying to break the record.

"You've got to take somebody out," he said. "When a team is just embarrassing you, shooting threes when the game is way over, just trying to set a record....You have to knock the (heck) out of them. Not for this game; to set the tone for the next game.''

The Cavaliers broke several long distance records during the contest. They drained 18 treys at the half and were only three short of snapping the league's postseason high set by the Golden State Warriors (21) a little over a week ago; and only four shy of breaking the all-time record (23).

It was inevitable that Cleveland would be making history on this night. It was just a matter of when. The postseason record was eclipsed after Kyrie Irving hit back-to-back threes with 5:06 remaining in the third quarter, giving his team 22. They went into the final quarter with that amount.

Although surpassing 23 was forthcoming with a full quarter left to play, players in Atlanta's locker room felt like Cleveland went out of its way to accomplish the feat. The opposition's belief is that the reigning Eastern Conference champions passed up making routine basketball plays and avoided the driving lanes to jack up threes.

"So if the Warriors are at 72 wins, they shouldn't go for 73?" LeBron James countered to cleveland.com on his way out of Quicken Loans Arena. He didn't have much else to say regarding the matter.

The fourth-quarter numbers don't suggest the Cavaliers were trigger-happy. They shot 12 in the first, 15 in the second, seven in the third and 11 in the final quarter. In the five previous postseason games, Cleveland averaged 34 3-point attempts. They were 25-of-45 from downtown on Wednesday.

Dahntay Jones, who logged half of the last 12 minutes of the game and who isn't known as a 3-point shooter, knocked down the record-breaking 24th triple with 2:22 remaining on the clock. He was taken aback by the Hawks' assertion.

"We ran our offense and got shots in our offense," he said to cleveland.com. "That's what we did. Mine were wide open. Both of mine were wide open so I don't know what they wanted me to do. I didn't have to put the ball down or nothing. I was wide open for two of them.

"I guess it's a testament to, well, I don't know what it's a testament to. We were wide open. Really, I'm dead serious. I just sat in the corner. I sat there for two shots. We didn't even push the ball in transition. I really don't understand the logic but hey, it's just one game buddy."

Atlanta was clearly emotional and mentally drained after the game. You could see it. This likely led to their unexpected comments. They're a group of standup individuals. It was just probably due to being in the heat of the moment.

One Hawks personnel member told me very candidly that, "It felt like we were getting hit by machine guns." It was just one of those nights for the Hawks, a night in which they were forced to witness history.

"We had 3-point shooters out there and they were shooting it so other than that, there's really nothing to say," the Cavs' Channing Frye told cleveland.com. "We know we're up 2-0, we've won our games at home and it is what it is. I'm not going to go back-and-forth with them. I really don't have too much to say about it. A win is a win. They're a good team. They're classy guys and we're up 2-0. We're going to play them again."