cam1218

Great post northcyde. It's nice to hear somebody using some logic.

We have definitely been a bad road team but we have looked beyond bad in the playoffs. They seemed to get worse as the season went on too which makes me think a lot of it could be a mental problem. Once the opponents lead gets over 10 the players seem to be thinking "here we go again". I was looking over the schedule and some of our road loses early in the season were only by 5 points or so. We might have lost by 20 last night but it could have easily been by 40+ and we are not THAT bad.

Has it been said he is definitely not playing tomorrow? On the team report on yahoo there was a quote saying something about how he plans to try and play Saturday.

Better for us to lose to Miami? Geez. We needed to win that series, it's part of the growth of the team. Did you really think the Hawks were going to come out and win @ Cleveland?

There have been a few times I thought Woodson has lost the team throughout the season. We always seem to rally together though shortly after I talk to my friends about him losing the team though. It is probably too late for us to rally together this time but don't forget we are without two starters. With that said, I think injuries are more of a factor to us looking so bad on the road than Woodson losing the team in the 2nd round of the playoffs.

Joe has been in a slump, no doubt, but everybody seems to have a 'what have you done for me today' attitude towards him. Joe has been the most talented player we have had in quite some time and we are going to need him if we don't want to get swept.

I hope Marvin really is ready to play. We could really use his offense on the road.

That great play that you are talking about was LeBron driving, realizing he has nowhere to go, and then jumping into Horford to get a foul called. He then went on to sink 1/2 free throws to win the game. I hope that kind of stuff isn't happening in this series..

I can't wait. I'll be heading down there soon to start pregaming! I was thinking last night that it may be a good thing 3/4 the road teams won. Hopefully that helps us focus more by showing the players that just cause you have homecourt doesn't guarantee you a win. Go Hawks!

I'm really worried about this series. Like I said in another post, the Hawks haven't won a playoff series in a very long time. I don't care who we would be playing, until the Hawks prove they can win a playoff series we should all be a little worried. With that said though, we are a better team than the Heat and we should beat them. We won at their place earlier this season and they lost their one game so far here at Philips. Even if they win today they know that the Hawks probably weren't giving 100%. Wade is going to get his calls, we all know that. What is his supporting cast going to do? If Wade is getting his calls at Philips will we drive and try to get some too or continue to shoot jump shots? Joe Johnson is an all star and deserves to be getting treated the same as Wade at a playoff game in his own arena. Time will only tell..

You always want to upgrade at every position but I don't think there are many guys out there that we can realistically require that would be better than Bibby. I don't know the free agent list of the top of my head but the only guy I can think of is Nash? Dolfan is right though, think back to early last year when we had Lue and A. Johnson running the point for us. If you think we play a lot of 1-1 basketball w/ poor ball movement now, that was ALL we seemed to do w/ those two running the show. So if there is a way to improve--do it, but we can't just let Bibby walk as we have nobody on our roster that is capable of being a starting caliber PG on a playoff team right now.

Who really cares about this award anymore? When there are guys like Manu and Terry coming off their bench I don't really consider them the '6th man'. I know technically they are but these guys are starters to me. This award should really go to the best bench players who shouldn't be starting. It's not really even about who is starting anyways--who is finishing games for you? Nonetheless, Flip should've been somewhere on this list, the guy has been great for us all season long. I can't think of how many nights he saved us when Joe and Bibby were having off nights.

There isn't a team bellow us in the standings that is better than us. I think most of us know that--we have 82 games to prove it too. However, when was the last time the Hawks won a playoff series? I feel we SHOULD beat Miami but I'm going to worry my *** off this whole series. Until the Hawks become a regular playoff team that has won a couple of series I think everybody should be a little bit worried. Making the playoffs last year was step one. Step two IMO is winning a series (though you could argue it could be homecourt), and winning a series is something we haven't completed yet.

Earlier in the season I thought this had the potential to be a huge game. Now I really wish we weren't playing it at all. How much do the players really care about it? As a fan I think we might not want to give them any confidence that they can win at Philips but do the players really care about any of that? We know how good we are on our homecourt and so does Miami. Miami knows we don't want Joe getting hurt so even if they do win I'm sure they know they stole one and probably didn't get what they will be getting from the Hawks this weekend. Maybe we can use some reverse psychology and have them thinking they can win here--then run them off the court this weekend. Who knows? It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

When Childress was playing in the NBA 'experts' would talk about him being one of Knights screwed up lottery picks. After Childress bolted to play overseas all the 'experts' talked about how the Hawks couldn't rebound from losing him. Luckily the 'experts' had one of my friends seriousily doubting the Hawks and we had a nice little wager about the Hawks winning 45 games. He thought it was insane at the time--but here we are with 46 wins and 2 more games to play. Thanks 'experts'!

The words 'Speedy' and 'unleashed' don't sound right being in the same sentence lol.

I'm a huge GA Tech fan so I'll always have love for his game. His offense wasn't this bad at Tech though. I think a lot of it has to do with the speed of the game/not having any rhythm. His defense and energy do help us at times though. It's more obvious when you are at the games but you can see the team really pick up their energy when he is in the game making his typical "Mario hustle plays".

I would rather play Miami too. Only thing I'm worried about is having some annoying D-Wade fans in the stands at philips. Everybody get out and buy your playoff tickets! We need to rock the arena just like last year.

IMO it's a very big game. Toronto has played well as of late and we have looked pretty bad. Even in our last win against LA the 3rd quarter was the only quarter that we looked like we knew what we were doing on offense. The Hawks have been at points like this in the season where we thought they were about to crumble and they responded with a stretch of good games--lets just hope they do it again.

He did, and he had a couple of good games and a couple of bad games. He had that monster game against the Bulls and another really good game against the Bucks too. He also hurt his ankle when smoove was out and might have come back a little too early--but he did that because Smith was out and we needed him.

Sample size guys. It was one game and Horford happened to have a bad game--it happens. One bad game doesn't mean he isn't better off playing PF. I still think he would be better playing the 4 but it's not like there are a lot of legit centers out there for the taking.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was true. I have more friends that aren't from here than people that were actually born in Atlanta. It's just how it is down here. A lot of folks from up north come down south and pick Atlanta as their destination to live. It really hurts all of the sports teams down here--not just the hawks.

One out of five is true, but a little misleading. I don't think even Phil Jackson could've won many games with the teams Woodson had in his first couple of years here. I have always been up and down with Woodsoon. One week he pisses me off and the next week I think he is a good coach. So I say instead of looking at these last five years, lets let him keep that last year on the contract and then take a look at the three previous years. That should be more telling of what type of coach we have. If we keep improving next year I don't see any reason why we shouldn't give Woodson another extension.

Ah, I guess I'll chime in too. I was watching Hawks Live! after the first game on the homestand-- Pistons game and they were talking to Flip about why the team seemed to play better. He said after the Charlotte game the whole team and coaching staff game together and had a long meeting. He didn't go into specifics but said they spent a long time getting on the same page. He said their goal was to win out and if we are going to do that we have to win tonight. I really believe that has more to do with us playing better than anything else. The Charlotte and New York away games seemed to really wake us up. I think our team looked at themselves in the mirror and asked them if they really want to play? This is their answer. I feel bad for Marvin. I don't think we are playing better because he isn't playing, it just kind of happened at a bad time. We could've lost Marvin during that road trip and people would be talking about how bad our team is playing without him. It really goes both ways. That said, I'm all for Marvin coming off the bench. Why not give it a try? If having Mo in the starting lineup works then don't break it. Marvin is a better player than Mo, end of story, but sometimes we could use more balance in our rotations. We have a solid starting 5 even with Mo in the lineup so why not add more depth to the bench? Marvin, Flip, and Zaza would be a pretty nice trio to have waiting to come in and play.

I lurk around here daily and don’t really ever post—but this homestand made me want to say a couple things. What a great time to be a Hawks fan! No matter how we feel about Marvin starting or not, and lets not make this thread about that, it’s just a fun time to watch and support our team. I’m sure most of us have been Hawks fans for a long time, some a lot longer than most, I’m only 23 so I started watching them in the mid 90’s when they had the likes of Steve Smith, Mutombo, Mookie, etc., and I lost a little interest when they traded my favorite player (Smith) for Isaiah Rider. However, the Hawks are my team so I still watched them but it really hasn’t been fun since then. Since that trade there has been a lot of losing. A whole lot of losing.. We got a little glimpse of what this team could possibly be in the series with Boston last year. That was followed by an offseason that most of us found disappointing and that really took the luster of taking the Celtics to 7 games out of our mind. I still thought this team would improve and compete for a spot somewhere between 4-6. And today, here we are. This season has been full of high and lows. That always happens though—the NBA season is a long one. Most of my friends are fans of teams that are always good (even though they live in Atlanta too). They all seem to root for the likes of the Lakers and the Spurs. I used to always get heckled, “Hawks?” , “Are you stupid or something”, “Do the Hawks even still exist”. Now I guess I can’t come back and tell them yeah we do, and your Lakers and Spurs have nothing on the Hawks, but I can demand respect for my team now. I really don’t know what will happen the rest of the season. Of course I dream of Bibby getting hot during the playoffs and us making a run similar to the Rays last year in the MLB playoffs. Then sometimes reality sets in and I remember us getting blown out at Philips by the Clippers. Either way I’m proud of our team. They need to keep improving every year and hopefully get Flip a new contract in the offseason. Time will tell what this year will bring us but I know it will be fun. One thing I’m sure we all agree on though, in the words of Ryan Cameron trying to get the crowd at Philips to actually make some noise… “Lets go Hawks!”