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At the very least, it should be interesting to hear Nique talk about him during the games!

Drew said he will play JC2 or Teague depending on what the game/situation dictate. Teague actually played pretty well and Mo Evans was knocking down a few shots. There wasn't any real need for JC2 in the game so I wouldn't really be too concerned about it.

As far as the injury timeline, during his interview he said that his elbow has been bothering him since last season. It has been an on and off thing so he, or the team, never took it too seriously. He said that everybody was shocked that he had to have surgery. I'm glad they are getting this problem fixed and we can see better play from a healthy Joe Johnson soon.

Good points, I agree about "not having enough shots to go around". I don't think it's a huge problem if some of our players can learn to play a more team oriented game. Let the hot hand take the majority of shots and go from there. It seems we will see somebody like Horford going 7/8 early and the ball won't seem to go his way. Our guards will continue to jack up shots and ignore who is playing well. We just need to be more alert and get the ball to who is playing well, not who is paid the most.

Gray Mule is right. Those of us who watched the game could tell there was a different intensity from our players. It might have been the Wizards but the game wasn't close from the middle of the first quarter on. If they give that type of effort EVERY night we will finally start to see more W's.

Jordan has impressed me with his play so far. It's nice actually seeing a guard we draft being able put the ball in the basket. I don't think he ever will be a PG but he could be one of those combo guards. I noticed he has passed the ball to Zaza on his drives a lot and has actually got Z some nice looks. Zaza isn't finishing any of these so we have yet to see any of his nice passes translate into assist numbers.

Marvin needs a fresh start somewhere else. It's becoming more obvious that he just doesn't fit in with this group. I don't think any of us thought he would live up to being the 2nd pick of the draft but I also didn't think he would be this bad. He takes some really weird looking jump shots from different spots on the floor. He doesn't even know where his sweet spot is. I really wanted to get somebody like Anthony Morrow so we could have a 3 in the motion that can actually hit open shots.

This season has been really up and down. I don’t think any of us thought we were as good as 6-0, as bad as 0-4 and 2-1 pretty much seems right if you thought our home game tonight was one of those wins. So, before I get judged for a meaningless post count or no post that clearly goes to one extreme to draw attention I hope you give this a good read. It might be long but I feel it's important to actually post something worth the readers time on forums. So I hope my ideas, right or wrong, maybe create some discussion about how we can improve opposed to how much we suck or what trades we could make with our NBA video games. So what is our problem? I see a many problems, I'll highlight a couple; 1) Is Larry Drew’s rotation horrible or is it to preserve our older players? I have been pretty happy with Larry Drew so far. I think he knows what we need to do to be a better team. Is it possible he was so set in his way (you try to be an assistant coach on a team, seeing problems, imagining how you would fix them, getting the job, then trying to fix—you get the point). I’m really glad he is trying to use the bench more but do we really need to use it if they are playing so poorly? Bob Rathbun said something tonight along the lines of “the difference between Terry and JC11 is that our bench player admits he is a bench player.” Well, if he knows his role, don’t play him when he is so horrible. Did anybody think tonight that he would actually get it going in the 4th quarter? Or did anybody feel Zaza might do something productive or Evans wouldn’t find a way to turn the ball over? Plus, I wonder why he pulls starters in the first when we are playing well. How many games have we scored 14 points in the first 4 minutes and score 10 during the last 8 minutes. The only positive tonight was JC55 took some of tentative Teague’s minutes. Also, why was Smith out of the game with around 6 minutes left? 2) Our offense is made for guards, but our best players are forwards? Look, I really believe Joe Johnson is going to get it going. Either way, he doesn’t look confident on the court. I pretty much started watching the Hawks again because Joe was so good when he came here. Does he have a problem not being the go to guy every friggin play? Being comfortable and confident for a jump shooter is KEY in basketball. I really don’t think Joe has either of those going for him right now. How can we get Joe feeling good about himself again? Horford has been amazing this year and Smith has been really good too. We talk about Smith taking more jump shots but Horford is too. The thing is, Horford is making them, and even though JS is too—we are afraid he will start to shoot like the JS of the past. As I said, the offense is made for guards and it’s making our two forwards into jump shooters. It looks pretty when they are draining shots in the 1st/2nd/3rd quarters. Then comes the fourth and nobody, guards or forward, can make a jump shot. Mainly guards because they are the ones taking those shots. It's so backwards right now. There are other problems too. At home games we are waiting for our runs and not committing to defense—the problem is those runs aren’t coming. We have two ways to score. Either we are hitting the J’s or we are scoring in fast break. We can be good at both but the Hawks haven’t shown they are consistently committed to playing great defense (especially at home—I was at the Bucs game and it was bad). I think most of us agree that I’d take less than 50 wins if it meant our team would be better in the playoffs. It just looks like the players are expecting the playoffs right now and just want to show they can win games in the second round as opposed to playing well in the “meaningless” games. They forget that most of the good fans are going to still judge them based on how they player during the season. Why do they think home attendance is so bad? The last two second round exits have been a buzz kill and really ruined the season until you took tame to look back and reflect. I do remember things like those 9-0 home stands, come back victories at home, consistent effort at home. This year I haven’t really been able to enjoy our games yet. I hope things get better. GO Hawks!

Honestly, anybody that is thinking this game should be an easy W is probably fooling themselves. This game reminds me of our home opener against the Mavericks a few years ago. We were a talented up and coming team that was finally ready to take the "next step" and wanted to prove it with a big win against a playoff team. Memphis hung around the playoff mix last year for the 8th seed for a decent chunk of the season. They are out to make some noise tonight and I hope our guys are ready.

As capstone is saying, it's a single preseason game. I haven't even looked at the box score but I can tell you the players probably gave it their all for the first half and lost focus in the 2nd. It's just how professional sports go; nobody really gets up for games that don't count. As Iverson said, "Practice? We wanna talk about pracice?" This is the first game in preseason--any fans claiming doom already are just looking for something to complain about. You should also keep in mind that Memphis was getting creamed at the half so they probably came out focused in the second half.

I agree, I always tell my friends that we need Bibby in the game to make our offense flow a little better. Woodson seems determined to keep Jamal in the game during the end of the 4th whether he is playing well or not though. This usually means that either Marvin or Bibby are going to have to sit. Marvin was our early offense in the game Wednesday, his reward? About two more shots and some time on the bench.

The funny thing is that more ball movement doesn't always help our offense. When we are playing well usually it centers around the ball movement but I feel sometimes the ball movement hurts us when we aren't playing well. It seems it sometimes leads to more jump shots, putting us back to square one. I know it is better than the one-on-one play that we always do, but as of late when we move the ball it isn't effective ball movement. If we seemed to move it to get somebody open then yeah, we should keep doing it. But the ball movement we have been doing seems forced. Pass it inside, let Al dribble, pass it back out to Joe, Joe passes it again to Crawford, Crawford dribbles and passes it back to Joe and we are pretty much where we started but with only 7 seconds on the clock. How many times have we recently actually passed the ball around to get one of our forwards an open shot in the lane? Can we please get somebody in here to teach effective ball movement to these guys?

Very very good post. Like you, I have been on this site for quite some time but usually don't get involved into the posting part of the hawksquawk. There still are a couple of reasons I think we can win this series. Remember last years Eastern Conference Finals? The Magic had just lost on a 'big baby' buzzer beater, then they blew a 14 or so point lead in the 4th quarter to go down in the series 3-2. At this time, everybody was arguing with one another. Dwight was talking about Stan to the media and all the players seemed to be lost. Well, somehow the Magic went on to win the next game at home and then beat Boston in game 7 @ Boston. Boston was something crazy like 34-0 in Game 7's at home I believe. We also only won road playoff game last year when we went down 2-1 in the series and had to win to gain our home court advantage back. Like the original poster said, the Hawks usually play their best when their backs are against the wall. Lets just hope that is the case tonight. Go Hawks!

I'm sure it will be similar to the Miami home game at the end of the season last year. The starters will probably get some time at the start of the 1st and 3rd but the rest of the game will be played by the reserves. We gain nothing from winning this game.

Eh, I don't know if the Hawks are going to be able to pass the Falcons. Josh Smith isn't really on Matt Ryan's level. Ryan had one of the best rookie seasons EVER. While Smith is very talented, we are all still waiting for him to put it together--Ryan put it together his first year in the league. GA Tech is also heading in the right direction with their football team and have Derrick Favors coming in to play for their basketball team. For those of you who don't know, Favors is considered the #1 player in his class by multiple recruiting services. I think the Hawks have passed the Braves though. The good news though is that I think ALL of the Atlanta sports teams are heading in the right direction (and hopefully that 'team' in Athens isn't).

Great news for the Hawks. Sund has done a wonderful job this offseason!

Good news on Bibby, not so much for Zaza. Lets hope that Zaza really does want to stay here.

Never been a big fan of Magloire, whenever he comes into the game you know something bad is about happen. I wouldn't mind that though if he is coming off the bench from my team.

IMO, with the trade for Crawford it means that either 1) Bibby is gone, or 2) Flip is gone. I think the only way Flip comes back next year is if we don't resign Bibby or if Flip accepts another bargain deal. I don't think Crawford would be scoring 20ppg if he is only getting 20 minutes a game.

I'm all for bringing Bibby back at around 6/7 million per year. I know we got Crawford, but to me he is just an upgrade over Flip, not the solution for our starting PG. I don't get why some are so worried about Teague getting a lot of playing time? Bibby was the point guard that got the Hawks to the playoffs back to back years. Plus, if Teague plays well he will find a spot in the rotation. Does everybody forgot how often we ran Joe/Flip/Bibby out on the court at the same time last season? If Bibby or Crawford's shots aren't falling Teague will be playing if he has earned it...

First and foremost I want to see a lot of close games. If they are close games I really don't care who wins. IF there is going to be a blowout I'd rather it be Orlando on the winning side. Kobe's weird little face he is making nowadays is starting to freak me out.

I've talked about this with a couple of friends actually. I wouldn't mind Tyler if there wasn't one of the point guards we are targeting still available. I think the Hawks need to set their mind on about 2 point guards, realistic options like Lawson and maybe Teague, and if those two aren't there just draft the best player available. We don't have to draft a PG if those two are off the board and if Hansbrough is the best player I say we take him. Hopefully his intensity and work ethic could rub off on some of our other players.

We all knew Woodson was coming back next year if we made the playoffs this year. I'm not excited about this but I'm definitely not 100% against it. I'm just glad they didn't extend his contract.

Joe was one of the players publicly saying we should bring Woodson back after his first contract expired.

Don't forget earlier in the season we lost to the Cavs @ home on a LeBron free throw that he should have never been shooting to begin with. I think the game will be called a little better since it's in Atlanta, but when the game is on the line I won't be surprised to see another call go LeBron's way. Be loud Popeye, let the officials have it!