bronnt

Erm, well, if you go by the on/off stats, Zaza is the best defensive player on the team. Fairly easily-Flip Murray comes out second best. The only exception is Acie Law, who played backing up a horrible defensive PG for a small sample of minutes.

If the Hawks want to save money, they could pull an "Eddie." Fire Woody, and then just find any willing fan to coach the team.

Plus, apparently the Boston Globe writer doesn't know what "digress" means. Probably meant "regress." But, heck, maybe the FO is playing politics-leaking false stories to drive down Marvin's value.

He's like Zaza at his best, but he's got decent quickness to go with it, as well as a decent face-up game. He can hit the jumper pretty well out to 12 feet, but he's also got the handles to occasionally drive in as well.

I'm not sure how the caphold for the draft pick works-are we already on the hook for his salary even before we sign him? Or do we have the flexibility to sign, say, Mario West to another minimum deal before the draft? Also, can you trade a BYC in a deal involving draft picks?

Also, it's Monta, even though you'd think it's Monté from the way it's pronounced.

Seconded. Diesel will have at least 8 of these this offseason, he usually has one or two good ones.

Uhm, talking about the Wizards' injuries...Atlanta won 47 games this season. Al Horford: 67 games Josh Smith: 69 games Marvin Williams: 61 games. Atlanta had injuries as well, but still had a very good year. Everyone has injuries, so it's not like Jordan is a miracle worker. Jordan is, IMO, an average coach at best. That said, I think an average coach is a solid upgrade for this Hawks team. Someone who has a plan, offensively, and has an idea of how to make it work. I feel like the Hawks haven't actually been listening to their coach for a long time, so a new voice is needed.

Just for the people who are still complaining about Billy Knight a full year after he left, think about this. 4 first round picks in the 1999 NBA draft (considered one of the better drafts ever). What did we get out of it? 1) Jason Terry 2) Cal Bowdler 3) Dion Glover 4) Jumaine Jones 5) Robert Bergerson (second round) Guys we could have had (this is just from one draft): Corey Maggette Ron Artest James Posey Andrei Kirilenko Jeff Foster Manu Ginobili And that's not mentioning the fact that we obviously needed to trade up to get Andre Miller instead of taking Jason Terry, who was a 2 guard in a PG's body. Also not mentioning the trade that ultimately killed this franchise-trading Steve Smith for Jim Jackson and Isiah Rider.

Funny what an ankle injury and a few missed days can do to your timing and confidence.

Technically, if the big man stays out to take a jumpshot after setting the screen, isn't it then called a "pick and pop"?

Lies and damned lies. via 82games.com: FG% on 2 point jumpshots Joe Johnson: 41.2 Al Horford: 41.0 Glen Davis: 36.5 And just for fun Josh Smith: 32.2

Artest = well above league average from 3. Smoove = One of the worst. Shoots 32% on two point jumpers-easily the worst in the NBA.

The class Josh Smith needs to attend utilizes shock collars. "No!" "No, bad!"

At this point, I'd take the success of those 90's teams. At that point we had a respected franchise that made the playoffs 8 years running, even if they couldn't break through. They seriously just needed to upgrade at SF and find a key bench sparkplug and they might have made some real noise. We weren't the toast of the NBA, but we were far from a laughingstock. Right now we're still feeling the repercussions, as a fanbase, for our 8 year drought. Too many times you still hear guys say "Oh, it's still the Hawks," and the arena isn't filling up even though we're finally putting together a solid team. And just a thought-forgive this little tangent-if you want to rag on BK's draft record, just look at how solid the 1999 draft was and what we got with 4 first round picks...not to mention the Steve Smith for Jim Jackson/Isiah Rider trade.

I bet I remember the exact play it happened, too. Bibby was playing Matador Defense on the left wing, and Zaza had to cut across to deliver a foul to prevent an easy lay-up. As much as Bibby buoyed us offensively, Cleveland was shoving their own offense down his throat.

Cleveland runs lot of ISOs, also. But there's two fundamental differences. 1) LeBron really CAN get anything he wants with the ball because he's too big, too strong, too fast. 2) Cleveland doesn't stand around and watch. They remain involved in the offense on LeBron isolation plays, moving, cutting, finding open spaces.

I'm worried that these Hawks aren't as hungry as last year's Hawks. And LeBron is better and will get more calls than anyone the Celtics had last year.

Sure you can be mad about that shot. For Josh, that 20 footer is just as risky as a 3 point attempt with 50% less of a payoff. It's like taking a long shot bet at worse odds than are offered. "I'll give you 30:1 odds on that." "No, make it 20:1!" Josh can't hit from 18 any better than he can hit from 24.

The problem is that Smoove is the one who will try to go 7-7 on threes, and Marvin is hurt.

Playing defense against LeBron requires team defense. Have to play him tight on the perimeter, and help over every time he drives. That said, here's how I rank the options. 1) Healthy Marvin-if he's healthy, he's probably the best bet. He's done a decent job against LeBron in the past, which is more than most people can say. He's one of the better man to man defenders on the team. 2) Josh Smith-the thinking here is that you need athleticism to match-up with athleticism, and having Josh guard Varejao is probably going to lead to him growing bored since Varejao is really their 5th option with any given floor combination. 3) Joe Johnson-I don't like it because LeBron WILL put JJ in foul trouble, but sometimes your best player has to be the man on both ends of the court.

I love that the voting is dead even. I feel like, if you've been watching enough, whoever first comes into your head when you think MVP is your MVP. Zaza for me. He was a man amongst boys in game 4-he had more rebounds than all the Miami frontcourt players combined, and in game 7, he was on the floor several times scrapping for loose balls. He kept many, many rebounds alive for others by tipping the ball up. He took a hard shot to the face in game 3 and barely even noticed. He was able to serve as both an emotional spark and the steadying presence. Really important to me is that Jermaine O'Neal was really outplaying Al Horford, which is something of a surprise. Zaza was able to quiet down Jermaine O'Neal and keep HIM from being the key player in this series. He was the only guy who was effective against him. And it's amazing how he was able to be productive despite the foul trouble caused by Wade (not his responsibility) and phantom calls (not his fault).

Game one, Bibby and Josh were running the pick and roll and it was an alley-oop fest, remember? Don't know what happened to that.

He probably wasn't at risk of aggravating his injury. But his value is certainly diminished when he can't even take jumpshots with his dominant hand. Can't blame Woodson for this, he had to play the cards he was dealt.

Beasley's shooting wasn't a problem. I mean, he kept taking jumpshots and he ended up shooting 11-25 for 22 points. That's actually pretty poor. I mean, the Heat shot 47.3%-take away Beasley's shots and they were 49%. What's completely unacceptable is letting Beasley kill you on the boards. He's not a dominant rebound by any stretch, so for him to come off the bench and get more boards than our starting frontcourt speaks to just two things. 1) Effort and Effort's cousin, 2) Hustle. Two things absent in Hawks' losses this series.