vext

Yes, I am serious. Bobcats aren't that great of a team and tonight was just one game. It's not the end of the world. Before this game, the Hawks had averaged 95 pts a game while allowing only 85.7 pts. The Bobcats are scoring 96 pts a game, but allowing 107 pts. I think our defense is going to clamp down early and I don't see the Bobcats digging out of a hole in the 4th like Chicago did. But then again, I am an optimist and could definitely be wrong!

Well, Joe was 5/6 on free throws. Teague was 4-8 and Josh was 5-9. That is just pathetic! This isn't freaking high school basketball. It's a damn free throw. And the good news with Josh is that he only took 1 three pointer. Unfortunately he was 6-17 from the field. Blame Joe as well though. He shot 7 for 20. That's over 20% of the total shots the team took and he made only 35%. Oh, and Marvin was 2-10. Beautiful. I would just blame our entire starting lineup. Horford doesn't get a pass either with 4 TOs, no foul shots, and fouling out. But hey, T-Mac, Willie Green, and Ivan Johnson all played well.

I think it all depends on how he plays and what the score is. I think we blow out Charlotte and he gets 20 minutes.

15 missed free throws. I am not saying that coaching wasn't part of the problem, but 15 MISSED FREE THROWS. Our 2pt loss two nights ago? 11 missed free throws. Make a couple more free throws and this team is 6-1.

I just looked at our schedule and it looks like it gets better by late January. We have 5 back to backs after January 21st and 1 back to back to back. We were hit hard early with the schedule (9 games in 12 days). I think we might be alright if we can make it through January with a decent record (like 14-8). We should be able to win another 10 games this month.

BINGO!

Sadly, you may be right. But we didn't have much choice as we would have lost him for nothing. Instead we would be complaining about how we should have resigned him instead of letting him go play in Chicago. I guarantee he would be looking like an all-star beside Rose.

I totally agree. I thought it was weird that we didn't go with T-Mac. He and Ivan basically got us back into the game. And then Ivan fouls out, why not go with T-Mac there? We needed scoring in OT in a bad way and T-Mac definitely could have provided that. I hope he wasn't sitting due to his knee. And damn Joe! Gotta make some freaking shots. Where was the floater when he took Battier off the dribble? Instead we get a blocked shot, another OT, and a loss. This game was frustrating as hell!

I think the real question is how do allow a layup with 12 seconds left to go instantaneously off of a timeout? We did the same thing in the loss to Chicago. And then no one dropped down to help Teague when he got taken off the dribble by Chalmers. Protect the damn rim people!! Oh, and hit your foul shots. Come on man!

That is our problem. It is that simple. We missed 11 free throws against Chicago and lost by 2 pts. We are barely hanging on against Miami and have missed 13 free throws. That is a big deal in these games. We should be shooting better than damn 66% from the foul line!

I totally agree with you Northcyde. I love Jamal, but we need Teague to grow (outside of getting CP3). I think we should sign and trade Jamal for back-up big if we really are going to sign T-Mac. I wonder if we are still going to bring Wilkins back? Hell, maybe we can sign and trade him to the Clips for Kaman if they really do trade Gordon for CP3 and want to sign Chandler to keep CP3 long term. Eh, who knows? Nice thing about this off-season is that it will only last like 3 weeeks lol.

Hah! Great point!

Listen, NBA teams may move, but it won't be us. It will be one of the teams that are losing more money than the Hawks (and there are plenty). Atlanta is far too big for the team to leave. I think Stern would pull some ridiculous Ewing lottery move for Atlanta at some point to prevent it from happening. I am kind of surprised that it hasn't happened yet. I think there is a lot of money for the NBA here in Atlanta that isn't being tapped.

Actually, winning one playoff series this past year is very different than years before. And going 6 games in the 2nd round against one of the best teams in the league is a major difference as well. The difference this year is that we weren't playing the Bucks or even a crappy Heat team like years before. Remember, we were supposed to get swept by the Magic and definitely swept by the Bulls. That alone is worth the trade. What this team needs the most right now is confidence and respect. Respect from the media, fans, and especially the refs will have a dire affect on us in the future. This is what we need to attract free agents (if we had money, but that is another story). This is what we need to get a few more calls our way. We were already a good team, but we got no respect outside of other coaches and players. That's not even including the fact that Teague had a great series against the Bulls. 40 minutes per game against Rose for 6 games with only 7 turnovers? That is ridiculous. Young players just don't wake up one day and kick @ss. They have to be given a chance to do that and have the confidence to do it. If we get bounced by the Magic in the 1st round (which we would have with Bibby, don't kid yourself), Teague would have never gotten his chance. This year would be year 3 of him playing 10 minutes a game on average and plenty of DNPs. He would probably never get a chance with us and would probably end up overseas somewhere or end up blowing up on another team. Hell, look at "he who's name shall not be mentioned". He had small moments with us at the end of blowout games, but he probably would have never gotten a real chance. Put the ball in his hands in Washington and he is at least producing quality minutes. And believe me, I wish we could have kept the pick. Hell, I wish we could have kept Crawford. But you can't get something for nothing most of the time. I will take losing that pick and Crawford if that means we end up with a real starting point guard and a solid backup point guard. We have been weak at that spot for years. Finally we got a legitimate, albeit aging, starter with Bibby. Now we end up being strong at that position with Teague and Hinrich. More importantly, we are defensively strong at that position now. That alone makes us a better team. I think people underestimate how important defense is at the point guard position nowadays with the point guard friends rules that have been put in place in the last decade or so.

I agree with the "incomplete". There is no way to grade a number 48 pick in the first couple of years unless he blows up. And again, it's still a 48 pick. Second half of the second round. If he averages 10 minutes a game during his career and plays for 5 or more years with appropriate stats for 10min/game then you got at least give the pick a solid B or better. I think we are all a little caught up in this since it was our only pick and we are still pretty use to picking pretty high. Initially though, I like that he is an athletic tall center and that he could possibly fill out.

Yeah, and we should have drafted CP3/Deron instead of Marvin and Brandon Roy instead of Shelden. Sh!t happens. Hinrich was/is an upgrade over Bibby and no one at the time could have guessed that Teague would come out against the Bulls. And this is assuming that he doesn't regress next year. What is 18 going to get us? Another player that may or may not work out (see example A - Acie Law). The fact is that the draft (especially this one) is a crap shoot. You have to work with what you know at the moment not what you look back at 4 months later. I would have loved to keep that draft pick and still make the trade, but you have to make tough decisions sometime. Where would we be if we kept Bibby and the pick while getting swept in the first round only to find out we could have traded him for Hinrich? We would all be b!tching. Life goes on, things have been worse, and things could be worse.

Craziness! How do you get an F for picking one player at 48. Most players picked there aren't in the league 2 years later. Hell, many of them never actually play. Did I miss something? Did we pass on the next Hakeem? Oh well, I am used to this sort of treatment as a Hawks fan.

You had me at, "Hollinger is an idiot"

I think the changes to the rules in the past 10-15 years are total crap. They moved the 3pt line closer to bring scoring back up in the 90s when it dipped from the 80s. That didn't help so they moved it back. They introduced the hand checking rule on the perimeter and the craptastic one fore-arm rule in the pain to make it easier for players to score to enhance the scoring. Then they introduced the Shaq-no-offensive foul half-circle. This made it possible for players to get more uncontested dunks in the lane. It also made it impossible to guard Shaq for several years. All he had to do was bowl over two players, dunk the ball, and go to the foul line (for some reason a foul had to be called and it just couldn't be against the offense). I think all of these changes have been ploys to simply add more flash to the game for the general public. Stern just wants the game to be exciting to keep up the Jordan-era popularity and profitability of the league. I love basketball, especially in the NBA, but the integrity of the game has been compromised. The rules have become complex and convoluted making consistent officiating near impossible. Superstars get extreme favoritism. And no one is allowed to disagree at all. If a player, coach, or owner says a single negative comment against the league they get fined in the same manner that an NFL player gets fined for an illegal hit. I think that it's time for a change in the league. The rulebook needs to be simplified and should be closer to college rules. Referees should be held accountable for their calls (which should be more consistent with simpler rules). Coaches, players, and owners should have more room to comment on the game without fear of being slammed by the league. There should be an agreeable middle-ground for this. I find it somewhat unconstitutional that they can't to be honest. Anyways, that is my rant. And to keep it on subject, the Mavs didn't taint this game and neither did the Heat. The rules committee has tainted this game since they first moved the 3pt line in '94. Previous changes were made to make the game better (24 shot clock, 3pt line, widening the lane, no goal-tending). As for the zone, it should have never been taken out. I think most would agree that college ball is a more pure form of basketball and it has had the zone forever. I am pretty sure it had the 3pt line before the NBA as well. But it all doesn't matter. Sadly, this game is only about money and decisions regarding it will always be made with that it mind.

Both players are definitely greats. I went with Bird though due to some of his intangibles. He was a born leader. He refused to lose at all costs. He really had a mean streak when he played. He wouldn't back down to anyone. He just had more drive in my opinion. He beat players that were stronger, bigger, faster, etc. Also, he made other players around him better. McHale and Parish really thrived off of having Bird on the court. Who knows how many championships they could have won if Bird had blown out his back paving his mom's driveway?

You hit it right on the head. That is an excellent point. We definitely need to force Rose to exert energy on the defensive end.

The announcers are idiots (outside of Hubie Brown, maybe). What announcers say should never be used to support an argument. I like Fratello and he was a solid coach, but that doesn't mean anything today. There is no way that a player should be played for 48 minutes. The truth is that we should have been going to Teague for baskets at the end when we were only down by 6 with the ball. Instead, we dumped in Joe's hands and let him dribble out the clock and throw up a contested shot. Deng is a solid defender and Chicago is throwing double teams at Joe. We needed to run him off screens more instead of going ISO or let Teague attack the rim. With that being said, we need to play Teague 40-45 minutes a game depending on fouls and such. He is young and has very low mileage. He should be able to keep up at that pace pretty easily. Once Kirk is back, we can hopefully get Teague down to around 35 and Hinrich around 30 (playing some SG). If Teague keeps playing at this rate and improving (if he ever gets a foul called) then we will probably need to reconsider our team's minutes given that we will have 4 producers between the PG/SG position. We might even be able to move JJ to play more SF (which I think would work out pretty well).

Good point, but still more than I expected from him. I figured he would immediately move onto something else acting like the playoffs never happened.

Well, he may have said some "birdbrained" things, but at least he admits he was wrong to a certain extent: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orlando-magic/os-bianchi-magic-hawks-game-6-0429-20110428,0,11119.column Go Hawks!! Next up... the Bulls. Man up baby! We can do this!!!!

I think Smoove on the 3pt line is partially out of habit and partially trying to get proper spacing. Things like the Jamal shot are probably just in the heat of the moment. It's good to know that it's an execution issue as opposed to a coaching mentality issue (a la Woody).