crimedog

His point was that Spoel shouldn't be scared of the Hawks team he saw last night. My point is that the Hawks also played like garbage and had a deceptively convincing win over a Heat team that got even more calls than usual. Regarding this article though, I'd staple it all over the Hawks' locker room. I'd staple it to Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, and Mike Bibby's damn jersey because they got called out by name. I'd also like someone to dedicate the next win (hopefully we get one) to Israel Gutierrez.

JJ and Al are exempt from criticism, you didn't get the memo?

If you were Mike Woodson, would you be afraid of the Heat team you saw last night? I certainly wouldn't.

I'd love for someone on our team to have that loser's resume of his... The worst call last night was the charge call on Joe, it was remarkable.

Man, if you got that to say about Josh and Joe, I can't wait to hear what you think about Marv and Horf.

Eh, he deteriorated pretty badly the past couple of years... I'd always thought he was overrated to begin with.

I'd do that deal most likely but a couple of points, by all accounts Amare makes Josh seem like Grant Hill attitude-wise. Also, Amare does not play in the low post, he's a face up player that gets his points off midrange jumpers and finishing the pick and roll.

Double wade... if someone else beats you, someone else beats you but you can't let Wade energize his team and the crowd. Don't run the offense through JJ. We have other options, lets play inside out, it worked in our win. Guys need to show up mentally for this one. Chances are they will, they got a little shell-shocked last game. To me the bottom line on offense is that we need to get some easy inside baskets early. If they are going to be doubling Joe from the get-go, he's going to take bad shots, miss, put us in a hole, and the rest of the team will get bored and not play to their fullest potential on D. If we get it going through the other guys from the start, if we take advantage of the rest of the mismatches, we give Joe some open looks.

You alright there pal?

I think the adjustment we made this game was to reverse our effective strategies from the last game. Instead of aggressively doubling Wade, we let Flip single cover him and instead of going inside to our more efficient bigs, we let our SGs take heavily contested pull-up Js. Credit where credit is due though, Miami hit some tough shots. We had the ORbdg edge and the points in the paint edge and Miami still won by hitting 56% of their shots.

I'd actually rather see the one handed oop he threw down in the half court... it came out of no where and you could see just how high he can get even without a running start. Interestingly enought, its not in any of these "slow motion" dunk captures from the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXsRSFsHlzE They would all work as a good commercial. You could do the reverse oop in transition from Bibby and watch Smith backtrack and then pan to the crowd going nuts and say "Where hometown heroes happen" or something.

I thought SAS was a moron when he didn't care about us and I'm not changing my tune because he does care about us. BK is still a moron.

It looked a lot like the end of Zo's career. He just went up and when he came back down his knee decided that it had had just about enough. I'll miss seeing him out on the floor but he's a good dude with a balanced life, I'm sure he'll make the best of it.

Also, the Cavs have Mo Williams who, while just "good" in general NBA terms, is the type of guy that can massacre us because of our personnel deficiency against quick PGs (although Flip is decent). Anyway, the Cavs don't have the best record and the best (by FAAAR) point differential in the league by some fluke. They are very very very legit and if you think we can beat them, why sell us short and say we can't handle the Lakers.

Hellz yeah. Well put.

Just as an FYI, Cleveland is a better defensive rebounding team than LA. They also go Z, Andy, Smith on their front line for 7'3, 6'11, and 6'10 with Ben Wallace who has led the league in blocks and rebounds multiple times as the 4th big... There is a reason Cleveland is considered a strong title contender, were we to face them we wouldn't have many matchup advantages like we do in this series.

I think it is important to play into our strengths here and resist the temptation to turn us back into a team that relies on slowing it down and iso-ing on the perimeter as often as possible. The more we do that, the more Josh and Al necessarilly get turned into jump-shooters. I can see the argument that we need to "get JJ going" before matching up with Cleveland but I also think that JJ can benefit from the rest of not having to carry the offense as much and we have the dual benefit of having a better shot at winning this round.

Yeah, this sounds about right. Its just an opportunity cost question. We'll definitely want to resign Murray and Mo is under contract for another year (and quite frankly, I like what Mo brings to the table for his price more than what Chil brings for his) and those two would take up the same minutes at the 1-2-3 as Chil while still leaving us without a real backup point guard or 4th big man.

Didn't the ESPN staff (AKA the Nat'l sports media) predict a Hawks' series victory by a 7-3 margin? (answer is "yes") It was the fans who voted who predicted the Heat to win, but after last night half of'em would probably switch to Hawks in 4.

I tend to think they are different but I also think that Mike was both the best and greatest, and I dislike Mike and LOVE Magic. I think of great as a career and achievement measure. I think of best (or any less superlative variant - good, better) as more of an ability measure. They are pretty highly correlated -- Mike was the best ever, scoring, defending, passing, rebounding... he was tops in every catergory. He also was the greatest ever because of the ridiculous accomplishments he perpetrated in terms of rings, mvps, finals mvps, scoring titles, dpoy, all-whatever teams, all-star teams, and general transcendence. Magic was similar but a very slight notch below as both best and greatest. Almost as many awards and titles, but not quite there. Could do a lot of things, more than Mike in a couple cases, but his overall impact was just below when you accounted for everything. Russel is a guy who was greater than he was good and Doc J was a guy who was probably better than he was great.

Cleveland is a LOT better than Miami. There is a reason Cleveland had the best record in the league and the average score of their games was something absurd like +9 (over 2 better than the next best team if I recall) as opposed to 0 like Miami. It was a good game, we should beat Miami because we're better than them. Skip is a moron.

He's a wing player, which means he can check Wade better than a small gaurd or a front-court player...

Hollinger's chat, just in case anyone is interested in his Hawks' thoughts: CC (Atlanta): Haven't heard anyone mention the Hawks getting Marvin back for the postseason. The added depth will get us past the Heat... what about after that? John Hollinger: After that comes four games against Cleveland. Maybe five. Certainly not six. Miami is a little banged up right now, though they say everyone will be back on Sunday, and they had trouble scoring on the Hawks all three times they played a meaningful game. Dror (Israel): Looks like we're gonna get LBJ Vs. Wade in the semis and then LBJ Vs. Kobe in the finals. Seems like a great opportunity for him to show us how worthy he is of his first MVP hardware over them both... John Hollinger: Not so fast on the LBJ vs. Wade. While the networks are dying to have this one, the Hawks match up really well against Miami and I think they'll prevail in seven. But if I walk out onto the court for that seventh game and see Bennett Salvatore, I might rethink my stance. Dwanye Wade: John, I'm saddened to see that you believe that I cannot take the Hawks. While I disagree with you that Lebron is better this season, you have to admit that I've been playing on a level that FAR exceeds anyone on the Hawks. Between me and my boy, Beasley, we got this covered! John Hollinger: Wade is far better than anyone on the Hawks, but 2 through 7 the Hawks are better at every spot, and Atlanta has contained Wade every time they've played by switching all the screen and rolls and forcing him to shoot jumpers over Smith or Horford.

Just to point out, the senior ESPN writers picked Atlanta 7-3, so its just the casual fan that sees the name "Wade" and doesn't really know anything else about either team that loads up those fan votes.

In my mind, Webber was a very good but not great player. He was second-tier like Amare, as mentioned by AHF, but a step below a prime Dirk and not in the discussion with a top of his game Duncan. He was probably worse than Smith with regards to taking jumpers too often, but he had a better shot (more of a set shot than a jumper for both guys really). Whether or not he sets a better example is a moot point though, Smith has a poor shot selection and Webber's job as an analyst is to point that out. I think that Smith has to take SOME jumpers to at least use it as a threat, but he takes too many from long range which takes him out of position. It is a flaw that definitely hurts his game, although it doesn't make him a completely inneffective player as he shoots 49% and gets to the line a fair bit considering his shot volume (which hurts us this season because his FT shooting went to crap). Its also not my biggest concern with Smith, I could live with his offense as is if he crashed the defensive boards like he's shown himself capable of.