lethalweapon3

Hearts out to our Mississippi and Mid-South Squawkfam, rough weather yesterday! FWIW, the radio play-by-play for Atlanta's hottest pro team, Atlanta United on the road at Columbus, will be on 94.1 FM instead of 92.9. As we await updates to Dre's and Trae's statuses, Jalen Johnson (mildly strained groin and hammy) remains Out for at least today. The Pacers are a continental breakfast away from submitting their report, but the only guys on it ahead of last night's game in Boston were Chris Duarte (sore ankle, DNP'd last 5 games after 2 starts) and two-way teenage wing Kendall Brown (out for season, tibia stress fracture). ~lw3

“What are you and Ben Taylor doing? Trying to get me fired?” Elimination Practice! We’ve got three of these left, today with the Indiana Pacers (5 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Indiana), then in a couple weeks when the Wizards come back to town, one evening after the Atlanta Hawks return to State Farm Arena from Chicago. I confess that usually, this is the time of the season when I get a little too excited, about Magic and Tragic Numbers. In an Inverse Pumpkin Spice kind of way. I am souled out when it comes to supporting the Play-Ins. Keeping blah teams like the Hawks (36-37) from just circling the drain and racing each other toward the bottom of the standings after the All-Star Break is a good thing in my book. But somewhere, in this hip-hop soul community, the Magic Number to put away Indy ought to be three right now. At worst. Not six! We can fuss all we want about the chicanery The Men and Woman of Gray exhibited at the close of Tuesday’s night narrow loss in Minnesota. Where I find fault isn’t anywhere within that game. It’s within the losses to Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, Washington, Portland, Indiana (33-41), Chicago, OKC, Toronto. It’s within the three (3) losses to Charlotte. Just cut that volume of Ls in half, Atlanta, and there’s your five-or-six-seed right here. Handle one’s business in those contests, especially early on in the season, and middling standouts like Tyrese Haliburton, DeMar DeRozan and Pascal Siakam don’t get to seize all the reserve All-Star slots from the NBA’s preeminent points creator, because “winning”, or something like that. Do your due diligence, and losses on the road to the Wolves on a March SEGABABA that doubles as an emotional day for one of its returning stars could be simply chalked up to tough luck, deemed One to Grow On. Some terrible blarge call in the clutch late in the season, accompanied by some half-hearted “my bad” by the refs in the postgame reporter pool, doesn’t kill you if you play like a sentient collective (minus-1.2 clutch plus/minus, 27th in NBA; minus-16.1 clutch Net Rating, next-to-last in NBA) early on in the season, and early on in individual games. Instead, everything for the Hawks is riding on how prepared they are and how well they perform against an Indiana team that overachieved just long enough for midseason honors (10-23 over last 33 games) and simply needs to be put out of their pseudo-misery. Oh, and a team that snipped the rip cord and took a dive in the second half last night just to get out of Boston. The wheels started coming off the Pacers’ wagon just before their 113-111 loss to the visiting Hawks on January 13. Haliburton had suffered a knee bone bruise and a strained elbow midway through Indy’s prior loss to the Knicks. Atlanta was without Clint Capela, but they were able to use activity around the paint from John Collins and Onyeka Okongwu to exploit the absence of not only Haliburton, but Myles Turner and Aaron Nesmith. Haliburton returned just in time for All-Star Weekend activities, but he could not turn Indiana’s swooning fortunes back around. While Tyrese returned to action last night in Beantown, he subsequently missed the prior six games, which included road losses at the hands of Detroit (by 20… where are the wet-noodle lashes for coach Rick Carlisle?) and Charlotte. There have been a couple good road wins in this stretch for the Pacers without Tyrese, notably in Milwaukee on Steve Austin Day and in Toronto, a dragging-down of the Raptors with a 118-114 victory on Wednesday. Both wins featured Carlisle pupil Andrew Nembhard (25 points in each, plus 10 assists @ TOR) as its lead scorer, and the plan for now is to proceed with Haliburton and Nembhard (top pick in the 2022 Draft’s second round) as the backcourt of their future, 2022 lotto pick Benn Mathurin notwithstanding. In the second half against the Celts, Carlisle turned to sixth-men Buddy Hield, T.J. McConnell, and Isaiah Jackson to preserve Myles Turner (career-highs of 54.8 FG% and 7.5 RPG), Mathurin and Nesmith ahead of tonight’s game. Hield and McConnell were ineffective against Boston in that half, but are always threats to be pests versus Atlanta. Dejounte Murray trades places on the Hawks’ injury/illness list with fellow starters Trae Young (questionable, contused calf) and De’Andre Hunter (contused knee). Former Pacer Aaron Holiday and Saddiq Bey will need to make positive net contributions mid-game – forcing turnovers, securing long caroms and loose balls, hitting open shots off the catch – if both Young and Hunter are no-goes. In any case, Murray will be instrumental in guiding a team that ought to find size advantages versus the 6-foot-5-ish Pacer forwards, especially when Turner (no steals and three blocks in last five games) abdicates the post to be a help defender. The Hawk guards and wings must keep Buddy Hield and Mathurin cool (IND 4-for-26 team 3FGs @ BOS last night) from the perimeter, and they must disrupt the Haliburton/Nembhard/Turner lineups from settling cozily into its offensive set plays. How well the Hawks play at both ends, with their inherent rest advantage, will go a long way toward determining whether the numerology on April 5, when the Wizards return to The Farm, is Magic, or Tragic. Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

I am not living right enough to be anywhere near #1 (#2 with a wholly different bracket on SI's Pat Benson's ESPN group). My only shot at coming out on top in any of these things is when everyone on Earth's bracket is Scorched Earth. ~lw3

Sounds About Hawks. (Update from last night: We moved "past" the Pistons!) https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/clutch-advanced?dir=D&sort=NET_RATING ~lw3

6:30 Boo-Boo Report drops in a minute and aside from KAT (Questionable, but really Probable pending pregame warmups) and Ant, the other Questionables we're waiting on for Minny are guards Jaylen Nowell (knee tendinopathy) and Jordan McLaughlin (presumed non-COVID illness). "Matty Icicles" Ryan is out on two-way duty with Luka Garza, so there'll be no bedeviling us tonight. Murray's out and Bogi (B2B injury management) remains Questionable. Perhaps more of The Garrison Matthews Experience? Or will we get The Amazing Krejci? ~lw3

“So, like, Newton’s First Law of Basketball is, what goes down, comes back up, if you apply enough force behind it. The scientific term for that action is what they call a Dribble.” First things first: RIP to former Atlanta Hawks assistant coach and NBA legend Willis Reed. Next: The good people at the Target Center would greatly appreciate a Schedule Win for the home team today. The Atlanta Hawks enter tonight’s game with the Minnesota Timberwolves (8 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS North in MSP) merely a game ahead of Toronto for Eastern Conference Play-In seeding. But at least the Hawks (36-36 after last night’s win vs. DET) have an itty-bitty Play-In cushion. Out West, the T’wolves (36-37) are a half-game away from having to watch the Play-Ins from home. The schedule gods have not been kind to Minnesota lately. Their slate, from February 7 to season’s end, features 17 road games, to nine in Minneapolis. The Wolves have already played five of those nine home games, all versus NBA East teams (WAS, CHA, PHI, BRK, BOS), and they have come up empty. Toss in a win by the Magic at Target Center back in January, and that’s six straight wins by Eastern visitors of varying successes versus coach Chris Finch’s crew. Today’s game is bracketed by one three-game Eastern road trip and one upcoming three-game Western trip, each including a back-to-back set (the Wolves’ East trip featured unhelpful defeats, as far as the Hawks go, @ CHI and @ TOR on consecutive nights). The matchups after tonight are at Golden State (Sunday), Sacramento (Monday) and Phoenix (next Wednesday). North Star reinforcements are coming for the stretch run. Days after scoring inside unfettered (32 points on 10-for-15 2FGs, 8 D-Rebs, 5 assists @ ATL) in a 136-115 rout of the Hawks in his hometown, Anthony Edwards sprained his ankle and exited minutes into Minnesota’s loss at Chicago. Ant Man has been out until, possibly, today. Also out since late November, due to his strained calf, has been Karl-Anthony Towns. KAT is likewise listed as questionable, and he could be greenlighted so long as his thumbs aren’t sore from playing PUBG all night. The burning question is whether these reinforcements are arriving too late. The Utah Jazz certainly hope that’s the case, and Wolves team Prez Tim Connelly not so much. Also vying for one of the final Western Play-In slots, the Jazz begin recouping at draft time this summer, having dealt away Rudy Gobert, with the first of several unprotected first-round picks. If Utah has to settle for just one Lotto pick, they’d rather it not be their own. The Edwards-Towns-Gobert trio was a net minus-0.3 per 100 possessions (bball-ref recipe) in under 400 minutes together during the first two months of the season, and it remains to be seen if Finch can get the chemistry to work in time to make a strong postseason run this year. A healthy Gobert patrolling the paint as a rim protector allows Mike Conley, Kyle Anderson and Jaden McDaniels to roam the perimeter while Edwards secures defensive boards. That approach worked well versus the Hawks (4-for-22 team 3FGs) in their last meeting. Problems ensue when the Wolves struggle shooting from outside, too (39.2 team 3FG% in wins, 33.0% in losses), and compound that with turnovers (15.2 team TO%, 4th-worst in NBA) plus poor rebounding at the other end (70.2 team D-Reb%, 27th in NBA). Towns, at close to 100 percent conditioning, can ameliorate most of those issues. We won’t know how immediate the impact could be, especially if he hasn’t regained last season’s shooting form (41.0 3FG% in 2021-22, 32.5% through 21 games this season) in his stretch-big role. Fortunately for him, the Wolves do have a failsafe, one who just so happens to be celebrating his 29th birthday today. Taurean Prince decided to celebrate a couple days early, making amends for his March Madness past as a collegian by splashing 12 of 13 shots (8-for-8 3FGs, 35 points, most since his 38 vs. CHI with the Hawks five years ago) in a career performance that obscured Julius Randle’s 57 points at MSG on Monday. Despite blowing a late 17-point lead, Minnesota’s 140-134 win over the Knicks also salvaged an otherwise treacherous road trip and gave hope, with Towns’ and Edwards’ impending returns, that upward momentum is around the corner. Dejounte Murray’s status (non-COVID illness) is up in the air after missing last night’s 129-105 win over the Pistons in Atlanta (107, technically, if you bother to count Jaden Ivey’s silly shot). But the Hawks’ ability to pressure ballhandlers and force the opponent into tough shots, blowing the game open in the third quarter, is instructive as to the defensive approach that needs to carry over into today’s game, with or without Murray, and through the remainder of the season. Minnesota may have enough answers, among Prince and the supplemental cast, to pull together in time for the 2023 Play-Ins, and a Schedule Win this evening will help extend the upward trend with rest days on the way. Looking ahead, though, that team is bound to be cap-congested once Edwards’ rookie-max deal comes due in the offseason, and they’ll have diminished ability to patch up roster holes with first-round talents in the coming seasons. If the Edwards-Towns-Gobert trio doesn’t pay title-contender dividends by this time next season, and their Northwest Division rivals thrive, the Wolves could be facing quite the lupus fiasco. Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

The Dream Melted Ice Cream. ~lw3

Dejounte looks like he'll be a no-go for this one (non-COVID illness). Somebody get him some Kleenex boxes and some Nyquil before tonight's trip up to Taureanopolis. There'll be no calls of ONIONS! to accompany buckets by Isaiah Livers, who is downgraded to Out (sore hip), But there will be free breakfast for the Pistons in the morning, now that they can count R.J. Hampton in. He's been upgraded to Available (back spasms). ~lw3

No change as of 12:30 PM on the Boo-Boo Report. Dejounte (non-COVID illness) takes Trae's spot as the pre-game Questionable with JJ still out. Hampton and Livers remain up-in-the-air for the Pistons. Oooh one more thang. Is my Squawk Fantasy Hoops team on Yahoo! supposed to be some kind of postseason inspiration for the actual Hawks? How is my club sitting there at 108-108-4, moonwalking into the playoffs, and now in the semifinals? For Shame, Squawk GMs! For Shame! Please put me out of my mediocre misery, cap! ~lw3

“JANE! Stop this crazy team!” Shoot, I’ve got even less to say now! 126-118, huh? Not gonna hold you, this is the first time I bothered to peek at Sunday’s disastrous final score. 83 first half points by the Hawks was cool beans and all, but the 61 points they gifted the semi-serious Spurs (on 51 percent from the field), was burning a hole right through my allegedly Smart TV. Then the Hawks forgot who anyone was on the other team along the perimeter, much less who should be out there contesting those guys. Then with the lead swiftly chopped in half, Trae Young decides it’s a fine time to chide the officials, his technical moving Atlanta (“NUMBER”-“NUMBER plus/minus one or two”) closer to the scenario where they’ll have to play a game at season’s end with some Play-Ins on the line and their “impact” player watching from home. That was my sign to move on with my TV programming day. Due to the odd Sunday tipoff time, I was unable to hide behind The Food That Built America re-runs, and it was too late in the day to kickstart a Peppa Pig bingewatch. So, midday March Madness it was. C’mon, Lady Jackrabbits, you got this! As a helpful hint, strategically place gnomes, candles, urns, books or knickknacks of sufficient height that you don’t have to catch the Hawks’ undoubtedly evaporating lead on the ESPN ticker. Not so Smart are you now, Mister TV? Life Hack! It bears not repeating that No Lead is Safe in Today’s NBA. The Spurs, of all teams, knew that going in. But enough about the Spurs. How much our down-and-up-and-down Hawks remember from Sunday’s cataclysm in Alamo City is likely to bleed into today’s meeting at State Farm Arena with the Detroit Pistons (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Detroit EXTRA). That is, the things Hawks players remember, but never quite seem to learn and grow from. Hide the standings, as we all know where the Pistons (16-56), who pretty much called it a wrap once Cade Cunningham (tibia surgery) was shelved before Veteran’s Day, reside. Disregard what was a Must Not Embarrass Thyself game, for then-coach Nate McMillan’s floundering basketball club, when these teams last faced off here before the Christmas break. Do not let these Hawks know that Detroit last won a contest away from Little Caesars Arena roughly two months (and nine road games) ago. Even the Warriors are impressed. We, as fans, can know that Bogi is the only surnamed Bogdanovic allowed to grace the court today – Bojan’s Achilles is the reason the veteran holdover has been kept on ice all month. We can be aware that, in addition to Cade and Bojangles, Alec Burks (sore footsie), Jalen Duren (cervical whiplash, darn those jazz club conductors), Beef Stewart (impinged shoulder), and Hamidou Diallo (sprained ankle) are all conveniently unavailable, with R.J. Hampton (back spasms) and Isaiah Livers (sore hip) listed as questionable. Just, please, fans, don’t tell Atlanta’s players. All the Hawks need to know is, as Jaden Ivey and Killian Hayes jack up shots and drive head-down in search for cheap fouls and easy dishes, Atlanta’s frontline needs to be standing tall, for not just a quarter or two, versus Detroit’s Human Wemby Insurance. James Wiseman (last seven games: 17.0 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 56.4 FG%; 22-and-13 vs. MIA on Sunday) has joined Marvin Bagley in the starting lineup as part of GM Troy Weaver’s Lotto Reclamation Project. Will John Collins and Clint Capela look the part of playoff-steeled NBA veterans versus Detroit’s New Kids on the Low Block? Can they rotate and avoid getting caught in No-Man’s-Lands when the Piston bigs invariably wander out to the three-point stripe? Acquired from Detroit in the deal with G-State for Wiseman, one Killer B, Saddiq Bey (last three games: 4.0 PPG, 31.3 FG%, 1-for-8 3FGs, 3.3 RPG, 1.0 APG) needs to regain his sting. Absent Jalen Johnson (out, strained hammy and groin) once more, Bey and Atlanta’s remaining forwards and wings must not get caught repeatedly missing their defensive assignments. Maybe they didn’t know Devin Vassell from a can of paint. But nobody should be asking Sherwin Williams about veteran Rodney McGruder (4-for-5 3FGs in DET’s last home win, last week vs. IND, 6-for-10 on threes and season-high 20 points vs. DEN last Thursday). Open threes keep teams, good, bad or otherwise, in games against the oft-bad Hawks (4-17 when opponents shoot over 40.0 3FG%, incl. 0-10 now, and losses thrice this month, when foes shoot above 45.0 3FG%). Especially without Dejounte Murray (questionable, non-COVID illness), if the coverage from De’Andre Hunter and AJ Griffin is poor, McGruder will have those poorly contested shots ready in ample supply. What more to say? Me, I’m at a Loss-Win-Loss for words! Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

Trae's bruised knee has him joining Jalen Johnson (tight hammy) with Questionable designations on the Boo-Boo list as of the 12:30 PM Eastern update. No changes on the Spurs' laundry list of maladies. Zach Collins and Doug McBuckets remain Questionable, KBD Doubtful, Sochan Out. No one will have to ask wherefore art Romeo Langford (activated and available, strained thigh), so there's that. ~lw3

"I put on for my former city!" ~d3j0unt3

When you fall asleep on top of your ballpoint pen. I’ve got nothing! All I’m saying is, these Atlanta Hawks had better have something against these San Antonio Spurs today (4 PM Eastern, what kind of tipoff time is that? What is this, the XFL? Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, KENS 5 in SATX). I mean, it’s the season-long-awaited return of Dejounte Murray to Alamo City? Need I say more? Fine, if you insist. There are two times in the year when an intrinsically bad team, one like the Spurs (18-52), is most dangerous. There is the “We don’t know any better!” phase that starts while everybody’s sitting at 0-0. The other is the stage when “Bottom-3 equivalent 14 percent lottery odds” are all but locked down. (Go away, Hornets. Shoo.) With Murray gone via trade this past summer, the club was getting ready to bravely hand the ballhandling keys to young Josh Primo at the season’s start. They promptly got molly-whopped by intra-organizational controversy, yet still decided to proceed full-bore without Primo anyway. Tre Jones (6.2 APG, 1.7 TOs/game), you’re up! The Spurs’ 5-2 opening run was guided by Keldon Johnson and yet another ATL kid who skipped town to play in the ACC, Devin Vassell. Then Vassell got injured, pretenses were abandoned, and the tanking began in earnest. In between that 5-2 start and the heady 4-5 stretch (with two straight OT losses, vs. DAL and MEM) they’re in now, while rifling through Alize and Stanley Johnson, and yo-yo’ing Gorgui Dieng before settling on him, someone in Brain Wright’s front office thought, “Hey, what are Jakob Poeltl and Josh Richardson still doing here?” In come some picks from New Orleans and Toronto, plus a rental of center Khem Birch (injured since December w/ TOR, probably needs to get shut down) and a rest-of-season greenlight for guard Devonte’ Graham (out with a sore quad injury, probably needs to, well, yeah). Atlanta (35-35) was fortunate to host San An during the visitors’ useful, intermediate 9-45 stretch. Even then, as Hawks are wont to do, they played patty-cake with the Spurs for most of the first half (thank goodness for De’Andre Hunter in that half) back on February 11. Mercifully for all parties involved, Murray (14 second-half points on 6-for-8 from the field), in the third quarter, decided playtime with his old mates was over. His shot making and his Hawks’ constricting team defense widened the 61-60 halftime lead to an eventual 125-106 rout. Those 106 points are the fewest Atlanta has permitted in any of its past 14 games, inclusive of the Hawks’ edge-of-your-seat 127-119 win over Golden State (How many rings, again, Klay? Coach Pop would like to know) on Friday. The 58-game string of triple-digit scoring allowed ought to be snapped soon, and there will be no better opportunities than today at San An (111.3 home O-Rating, 28th in NBA), and on the front end of this upcoming midweek back-to-back, versus NBA cellar dweller Detroit (108.3 road O-Rating, 29th in NBA; NBA-worst 99.5 O-Rating post-All-Star). As it stands, and albeit for vastly different reasons, only the Warriors are fielding as small a depth chart as the Spurs. Charles Bassey was upgraded to the full roster just in time before a season-ending patella injury. Hip to the game, coach Gregg Popovich’s club added Doug McDermott (contused hip, questionable for today) to the injury list, right before artfully blowing a 29-point third-quarter lead at AT&T Center on Friday, in a ti-tank-tic OT “loss” to the Grizzlies. Dieng (0-for-3 FGs) was the third quarter tank commander, leaving the game at a nifty minus-16 in just under seven minutes to help turn the tide. As Memphis waged their comeback, capped by Dillon the Wannabe Villain Brooks’ open three with two seconds left to knot things up after being down nine with a minute to play, the Spurs lacked the defensive and rebounding punch, especially without rookie Jeremy Sochan (out, sore knee) to hang any longer. The Human Sno-Cone injured his knee fouling Jaren Jackson, Jr. midway through the first quarter and could not return. Neither could Keita Bates-Diop (doubtful, sore Achilles), who never returned after halftime. In an overtime game, the Spurs’ season-low 34 paint points undergirded their demise, and the early sweet shooting from starting big Zach Collins (questionable, contused bicep), Vassell, KBD and Johnson betrayed them in the second half (8-for-28 3FGs after the 1st half). The tape of the second halves of the Spurs’ recent games versus Atlanta and Memphis ought to be instructive, as to the Hawks’ defensive approach to keep the Spurs from making extensive runs throughout the game. So should be video from the fourth quarter of Atlanta’s team defensive effort, led by John the Baptist Collins and Trae Young, to stiff-arm the Warriors. Sandro Mamusaymamusamamukelashvili is the likely sub at the starting five-spot if Zach the Jesuit Collins is a no-go. In any scenario, Atlanta’s interior offensive attack (NBA-low 33.0% 3FGA rate), steered by Murray and Aaron Holiday if Trae (53.3/45.0/90.0 splits over last six games; questionable, contused knee) gets some worthy rest, and assertive defensive rebounding from Johnny Bap, Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu ought to be enough to overwhelm the Spurs’ depleted frontline and spark plentiful transition scores. “Victory” in valiant defeat for the Spurs today also helps Atlanta ensure division-rival Orlando has to settle for slightly-reduced Wemby odds, with Charlotte’s window closing fast, too. C’mon, Rockets, give up the ship. What more can I say? Two words. Must Win! Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

NCAA trophy, and then... an exhibition rematch with Merrimack! ~lw3

They'd better hurry, as I'm just finding out from the broadcast they're upgrading (???) to Conference USA after next season. As long as they don't wind up being the MEDUSA of the CUSA, I'll take it! ~lw3

Get 'em next year, KSU! ~lw3

Looney (sore back) remains Probable as of the 1:30 PM Boo-Boo Report. Curry (sore thumb, left hand) is Questionable. Re-iterating that Jalen Johnson is out, but hopefully his hammy will loosen up in time for Sunday or at least next week's back-to-back. ~lw3

“Bruno thinks he oughta be a Killer B, too. Whaddya say, Coach?” The Champs Are Here! Eh, most of ‘em, anyway. Our Atlanta Hawks are entering Must Win territory for the final time this season, with this You Betta Win game versus Golden State’s not exactly Road Warriors (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, NBC Sports Bay Area in SFO, NBATV elsewhere). In advance, you’ve likely heard plenty about how a victory today by the good guys, in front of their raucous Friday night home crowd at State Farm Arena, would translate into ten consecutive road defeats for the Dubs (36-34, 7-29 away), who sit two games ahead of Play-In candidates the Lakers and (checks notes) the Thunder out West, and just one game in front of 7-seed Dallas. For those keeping score at home, the Warrior franchise record for road slides came not long after the club arrived in San Fran from Philly -- 20 games, from December 1964 through around this time in March 1965. I shall go out on a limb by suggesting that particular record stands. Still, what happened back then? Before that season, the NBA widened the lanes to thwart Wilt The Stilt’s interior dominance, and the defending Western Conference champs regressed swiftly. Their owner was already hemorrhaging money, and Wilt’s midseason trade back home greased the skids. Those Warriors tanked, grabbed a superstar from the Davidson Wildcats named Fred Hetzel with the first pick of the ’65 Draft, then a fella from hoops hotbed U. of Miami named Rick Barry with the next non-territorial pick, and all would be well in the Bay Area again soon. In any event, this current string is a stunning turn of events for a team, with its golden pedigree, that is/was The Greatest Road Show on Sports Earth. Yet here is a note of warning, Atlanta. All of those Ls G-State suffered were versus Western Conference clubs. Further, unlike 1965, today’s Warriors owner is making bank (not talking Silicon Valley-style, either), and tanking for the Lottery is not an option for coach Steve Kerr’s defending NBA titleholders. So long as their current Davidson draftee is postseason-healthy, the Dubs need dubs, for dubs’ sake, anywhere they can find them. Of G-State’s paltry seven road victories to date, three of them were in Eastern locales. Two of them (at Washington, at Cleveland) were back in late January, and they haven’t made a single Eastern pit stop from then unto now. Tonight is their season’s final eastward visit. The Warriors’ cross-country excursion to (rested!) Atlanta from L.A., where they fell to the Clippers on Wednesday, extends back West for games in Memphis (a SEGABABA tomorrow), Houston (who just whacked the Lakerdaisicals), and Kyrielukalopolis. After that, a last stand back home at the Chase Center is followed by season-ending road games at Sactown and Portland, both of which will be pivotal. You are also likely aware that Dillon Brooks’ shadow will return to Memphis tomorrow night. But because Draymond Green pulled a Draymond during the midweek loss to the Clips, his big yap cost him a suspension due to his 16th technical foul, negating his appearance on Atlanta’s court today. Andrew Wiggins remains out on excused personal family leave. In one of the only games this season where his presence was requested on the floor, Andre Iguodala broke his wrist on Monday. Kevon Looney is probably good-to-go, but the big man has been dealing with a sore back, dwindling his floor time of late. The Davidson alums and Warrior Wagon band members in attendance today care about none of that. Will their hot-shooting hero play today? And will he be gracious enough to serve us a juicy fifty-burger, too? Medium-rare, fried egg and all? Steph Curry’s thumb is sore. As yours would be, too, if you put up a season-high-tying 28 field goal attempts versus PG and Kawhi and led your team with a season-high 50 points and six dimes in a losing effort. There will be no Creature Double Feature for the Dubs this weekend starring Falcons assistant GM Trae Young and Ja Morant, not with the latter still out on his Keepin’ It Real suspension. Even so, Kerr faces quite the quandary. Does he field Curry (listed as Questionable; 30.1 PPG, his 50.4 FG% now eclipsing his career-best from the 73-win season) tonight, or load-manage that thumb ahead of tomorrow’s in-conference matchup against a rival that often plays well without Morant (as they well know; they lost by 21 in FedEx Forum just last week). Or, does Kerr extra-carefully manage minutes through what would be Steph’s first back-to-back since the first days of February? Those games were a pair of road losses that began this current notable streak, right before the star was sidelined for a month due to a leg injury. Due in part to Steph’s injury-riddled season, the Warriors haven’t won a FIRGABABA (1st game of a back-to-back set) with Curry on the floor since a December 2 home win over the Bulls (0-3 since). Steph’s last road FIRGABABA victory came a couple weeks before that, a November 20 win at lowly Houston. Most importantly, you are aware that time is of the essence not just for the downtrodden ring-bearers, but for their opponents sharing the floor today, too. Having squandered opportunities to sneak up on a 6-seed, or catch 7-seed Miami for the Southeast Division banner, there aren’t many avenues left for the Hawks (34-35, 0.5 games ahead of Toronto. Yay, tiebreaker!) to finish at even-steven, much less match last season’s 43-39 campaign. This three-game stretch, swinging out to San Antonio Sunday before returning home to face Detroit in a FIRGABABA on Tuesday, is essentially this team’s Georgia 400. At least coach Quin Snyder’s club has more personnel answers than questions, more than the team they face tonight. One less burning question on Atlanta’s slate: is Bogi Bogdanovic a Hawk 4 Lyfe? We got a clearer answer to that mystery with yesterday's announcement that the home team hammered out an extension that could run through 2027 for the soon-to-be 31-year-old sixth-man sniper (40.1 3FG%, although 0-for-4 and 1-for-8 on the floor overall in Monday’s deflating 136-115 loss vs. MIN). Reminiscent of a contract Kyle Korver once signed, this deal declines gracefully from $18 million next year, and a team option in Year 4 of the contract could prove palatable ((knocks on pressure-treated Yella Wood)) if Bogdanovic stays reasonably healthy and perimeter-productive going forward. He can’t be traded until at least the outset of training camp next season ((knocks on more Southern pine ahead of the FIBA World Cup)), so he’s ours all summer long. We can’t know for sure how much, beyond that, that the Hawks will be the team doling out this deal, but I suspect this move by first-year team prez Landry Fields doubles as a guarantee that he, and not another current, prominent NBA executive, gets to call that shot. It's not looking too great for Bob Myers, last promoted from Just The GM to bball-ops prez in the summer of 2016 at the same time his deputy dog Travis Schlenk was elevated to VP. Warriors ownership is allowing Myers’ contract to expire at season’s end, making him perhaps the biggest executive playa in play since Masai Ujiri (not counting Danny Ainge, he was headed to Utah regardless). Myers’ time may be drawing to a close in the Bay Area, and one suspects that Myers knows this. With his team struggling to gain traction, his one Deadline maneuver was to hop in on Fields’ deal for Saddiq Bey, by shipping swing-and-miss prospect James Wiseman to Motown and retrieving ex-Warrior Gary Payton II from Portland. A team president in it for the long haul might have blown that multi-team swap to smithereens, once discovering GP2 was damaged goods upon arrival from a conference rival. Yet Myers seems like he has somewhere else in mind. Perhaps, somewhere where he could hang around outside of the luxury tax lounge for a couple years (granted, his friend Travis may have other ideas in mind). Curry senses Myers’ time in near, too, as he recently vouched for his team’s top exec. “I don’t ever take that for granted,” Steph said during an NBC Sports Bay Area podcast last weekend, “the fact that I can have a difficult conversation with him.” What? No resorting to Kirk Lacob, executive hoop-ops VP and Owner Joe’s son, as an end-around? Who does that? “I recognize the extreme value he’s brought in just managing people. Very similar to Coach Kerr, in the way that they communicate.” Fields recognizes the possibility that Tony Ressler could grow enamored with the idea of bumping him, in favor of yet another head honcho in pursuit of Warriors East. The unexpected Bogi Bag that dropped, while not exactly a poison pill, adds to the pile of recent Hawk extension deals that no usurping GM/PBO would care to inherit. I see the vision, Landry. And I can respect it. What I respect a tad bit less is the Hawks’ Game Notes touting a streak of a different sort. Our Hawks, warts and all, hold the NBA’s longest current run of triple-digit scoring outputs, at 44 games above 100 points and counting. Nine more of those, and Atlanta would tie their franchise record of 53, set way back in 1969-70. Yes, I can hear the care from here. My interest lies on the other side of the boxscore. Atlanta held Joel Embiid’s Sixers to 95 points in a win back on November 10, the third time in five games that Nate McMillan’s troops throttled an opponent into double-digit disarray. Since then, 57 games later, we’d just be happy to see Clint Capela, John Collins, Tony Bennett career salvager De’Andre Hunter, Dejounte Murray (next steal makes him the only NBA’er with 100+ thefts in each of the past 4 seasons), Onyeka Okongwu and friends suppress somebody below 110 points. Atlanta is a deserving 2-16 when giving up over 125 points this season, 18-3 when yielding less than 110. Neither Curry nor Wiggins were anywhere to be found back on the 2nd of January, when road-tripping Atlanta waltzed into San Francisco carrying a knife to Klay Thompson’s shootout (54 double-OT points, just two from FTs). Klay was 10-for-21 from outside the three-point arc, but more tellingly 11-for-18 inside versus the Capela-less Hawks, including 4-for-5 from five feet in. As a team, Golden State shot just 32.2 3FG% even with Klay going cray, turned the ball over six more times, got to the line for five fewer foul shots, and eventually won anyway. All of that is to note that the streak of granting 100+ points ought to stay intact tonight, no matter if Draymond cold-cocks Jordan Poole (28 points vs. ATL in January, despite 2-for-12 on threes and 6 TOs) at the pregame hotel pool party, and no matter who suits up for the Warriors. Please, Hawks, don’t let JaMychal be the big Green story tonight. With Clint around this time to help plug the middle, Onyeka and the bench crew must stifle the Dray-less Dubs’ rebounding (69 boards vs. ATL in January; Bogi and AJ Griffin as the default bench bigs wasn’t a sound strategy). With Jalen Johnson out due to a tight hammy, it may be time to talk about Bruno. No? No? No? Hawk defenders staying glued to Curry, and/or Klay, and switching off screens to ensure that when they give up the ball they don’t get catch-and-shoot chances back, will be vital for victory. No matter Snyder’s defensive scheme, it must carry over into the upcoming games. If I may be so forward as to look forward, even in this fast-paced NBA society, there is no reason for Atlanta’s streak of allowing 100 points to reach 60 games. A current hoop-ops consultant with the Warriors once famously declared, “Nothing Easy!”, while a member of a breakthrough Hawks team. Nothing remains simple these days, but for these two teams desperately seeking a victory on this floor tonight, they sure could benefit from making things easier on themselves. Erin go Bragh! Fight Owls Fight! And Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

~b1t1ngth3bronz3

Ewwwww, coconut! That would be a nein for me! (Sorry, Dennis!) ~lw3

Bogi's back is still tight (DNP vs. BOS, questionable for today), so if Saddiq Bey needs a camel clutch or something to stay loose lemme know. The Killer B's have been shooting that thang! Also questionable on the other side of the ledger is Rudy Gobert, having soldiered through the fourth quarter and OT during Friday's loss to the Nets despite a sprained ankle, as well as Austin Rivers (back spasms). Towns may be back in time for the March 22 rematch with the Hawks, but not for tonight. The Hawks frontcourt should be ready to deal with the wondrous play of Naz Reid and the slow stylings of Kyle Anderson. ~lw3

To The Academy, For Your Consideration: “Thelma & Louise: A New Era” (2023) [PG-13] I am not about to drag out much more of your time by rattling on about my lonGTime pinata, the alleged collegiate athletics program up the road in Midtown, now that the head men’s hoops coach has been put out to Pastner. Then again, indulge me a little, and please tune in, once more, to the McDAAG Boys Game, a March Madness appetizer in Houston, around the close of this month. One All-American team will feature a 6-foot-4 PG, Isaiah Collier, who overtook the top spot in the High School Boys’ class of 2023 this past summer. He hails from Wheeler High School. Yes, the Marietta institution of secondary learning that begat the Abdur-Rahims, Shareef and Amir (congrats again to KSU!), and Jaylen Brown. The MVP of last summer’s Curry Camp and the Under Armour Elite 24 game, Isaiah narrowed his college list down to Michigan, UCLA, USC, Cincinnati and, for a touch of local intrigue… Alabama. Collier could’ve gone anywhere. Smile, Onyeka Okongwu, because he chose to head to your neck of the woods and commit to being a Trojan Man. He won’t be there long, not if all goes as planned. After all, Isaiah’s projected to be the top PG off the NBA draft board in 2024. Not far behind him in the one-and-done draft logs, on the opposing McDAAG team, will be a 6-foot-6 kid from the east side of Interstate 285. Covington’s Finest, Newton High’s Stephon Castle, may not get to follow Isaiah in pursuing the dreams of his namesake as a flashy point god, not if his 6-foot-6 frame continues to grow up and out. The gold-medalist swingman from Team USA’s U18 boys’ squad remains a probable lottery selection in 2024, once he departs the college program he selected. Of course, I’m talking about UConn. Let’s see that toothy grin, Tyrese Martin! Castle just picked your Big East school over offers from a slew of SEC finalists, including Auburn, Arkansas, Florida and, just to keep interest a little closer to home, UGA. Nique, you tried your best, I’m sure. 2022’s top Georgia high-schooler, bulky 4-Star point god Bruce Thornton of Alpharetta’s Milton High just made it on the Big (Ump)Te(e)n All-Tourney team in his first season at THE Pretentious State University in Ohio. To his credit, Thornton at least had some ACC finalists on his final recruiting list. The Hokies, Wake Forest… crack a smile, John Collins! Your guys almost had him! I don’t mean to cast aspersions on local yokels like Lance Terry and Kyle Sturdivant, kids who transferred into Tech after things didn’t work out elsewhere. Nor Miles Kelly, the Stone Mountain native from Gwinnett’s Lilburn High who earned consolatory ACC Player of the Week honors during Pastner’s push out the door (Kelly may feel inclined to voluntarily follow the same exit, soon). But as NBA pro-level prospects, these weren’t kids we could see coming from, virtually, a mile away. Regrettably, it continues to appear as though the ATL’s bumper crop of surefire NBA prep athletes continues to bump Atlanta’s top on-paper college pit stop right off their recruiting lists, assuming they get visits at all by the program who wanted its players to “Get Old and Stay Old” in White and Gold. All things considered, they’d much rather head four blocks up the street and toil for Overtime Elite. I don’t have answers, pertaining to the ongoing travails of the Yellowing Jackets in wooing top amateurs. But I do have ongoing fears, related to the winged-animal professional club that plays to its south. Jami Gertz is on TV showing off the latest peachy-colored gear now available for rabid consumption at the HawkShop. Meanwhile, on this same past Saturday night, our somewhat road-weary Atlanta Hawks team was getting plundered by that Jaylen Brown, and his merry band of lengthy snipers. I keep hearing about academics being a hindrance over on The Flats for drawing quality blue-chippers. But how does Cal-Berkeley, and USC, get the taps into the Wheeler High-to-NBA pipeline that our Institute of Technology does not? Out goes Brown, Malcolm Brogdon and the Celtics. In comes Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS North in MSP). Wash, rinse…? At least Edwards (past 3 games: 28.7 PPG) stayed in-state for his mandated sabbatical. But how did this kid from Atlanta’s Therell and Holy Spirit Prep highs get past Pastner like a ground ball past Buckner? Did Tom Crean learn how to Dougie or Wobble or something? I digress, as usual. Can you tell how much NBA teams -- the staffs, the players, the fans -- absolutely adore their ATL-area players? Walker Kessler plugs into a long line of Utah rim-pluggers and looks like he’s been there since the days of Eaton and Postertag. Since the preseason, Bucks players were pleading with Villa Rican Jae Crowder: “Just stay in shape and chill! We’re coming to get you!” Beating Miami in overtime yesterday, Wendell Carter (via Buckhead’s Pace Academy, and Duke, natch) shows promise for Orlando, when he, like half their roster, can stay healthy. Word to Chuma Okeke. The third-straight Georgia Gatorade POY, after Kessler and Sharife Cooper, to cross state lines for Okeke’s Auburn, the svelte Jabari Smith is proving to be worth the wait down in H-Town, just now stringing together some early-career nights for the down-and-coming Rockets. Then, there’s Edwards, who has vaulted from first-overall pick to All-Star in three seasons. Coming off tough home losses to the Sixers and Nets, his T’Wolves (like ATL, 34-34; 3.5 games from 4th in the NBA West, 3.0 games from 13th) have work to do if they plan to become the first Minnesota team since 2004’s Conference Finalists to reach consecutive postseasons in the currently muddled NBA West. The hopeful prospect of Karl-Anthony Towns (sprained calf) returning from his months-long injury should aid in that regard. But the Wolves have been hungrier on the road of late, notching W’s in both visits to the Crypt in LA, then following up the win over the Lakers the ensuing night with a game in Sactown that didn’t end with Kings fans beaming. They’ve had two off-nights to lick their wounds following Friday’s OT loss to Brooklyn. Having scored a modest 20 points on 7-for-16 shooting in his last visit home, a 134-122 loss to the Hawks back in January 2022, Edwards understands this is his time to shine, as will be next week’s rematch in Minnesota, with his Georgian friends and family watching from afar. Go up the road to The Battery, where DeKalb kid and Stockbridge High alum Michael Harris is challenging other Bravos to become the Next Big Thing in the Major Leagues. Son of a Falcon Grady Jarrett, out of Rockdale High, wisely stiff-armed Tech Football in favor of ACC “rival” Clemson. But the Falcons were clever enough to reel him in, and he’s been holding it down for A-Town as well as any D-Lineman the Dirty Birds have had in ages. Behind Grady, at least for now, there’s another I-285’er turned Clemson star, Westlake High’s A.J. Terrell, a perennial All-Pro threat in the Falcon backfield. If that’s not your favorite flavor of football, did you see North Atlanta High’s Caleb Wiley tearing up the pitch in Charlotte for Atlanta United this weekend? I can’t foresee what the future holds for the current core of Hawks now under coach Quin Snyder’s watch and led capably in the backcourt by Trae Young (career-best 32.0 PPG vs. MIN; 53.2 FG% in last four games) and Dejounte Murray. What I do believe is that if there is to be some raving, ready-for-prime-time success in the future, a pledge prospect at the Alpha Tau Lambda basketball fraternity is likely to be at the center of it. A homegrown kid who is aggressively pursued via the draft (go, Landry, go!), and even more aggressively developed (go, Kyle, go!) to be ruthlessly competitive under his team’s True To Atlanta banner. If we can surge up the draft boards and mix it up with other trade partners to claim a De’Andre Hunter, we should be able to do the same assertive packaging to nab an Edwards, or a Jabari, or swing a deal for a Wendell. There will be ample opportunities for Landry Fields’ front office scouts (go, Teague, go!) to give our local up-and-comers a strong look-see ahead of the coming NBA drafts. Please, let’s not wait until they’re past their primes (hey, Lou!) and sell-by dates (howdy doody, Dwight!) to trot them out before Hawks crowds as “Atlanta’s Own!” Like Newman’s Own, that local-kid-makes-good label can turn a bit saucy (‘sup Josh?), particularly given the veneer of Atlanta Sports lore. Some kids may struggle with the pressures of repping their home NBA club, then trend more toward wilting than becoming the next Wilt (how you been, Randolph?). But prepping the kid for proudly repping his city, and skirting all the potential pitfalls that task entails, ought to be baked into any modern-day development of the whole player. Embracing All Things ATL is swell when it comes to just surfing swag, and Swiss Family Ressler has proven quite good in that department. My worries come with the suspicion that there’s at least one tyke growing up in Hawks Country, having a ball at these games at State Farm Arena, dreaming of NBA glories, hitting a timely growth spurt, then blazing a trail toward a decades-long, Hall of Fame career with the Trail Blazers. Or, worse, the Hornets! Whew. Cold sweat. Along the way, kid, can you at least swing by North Avenue for a minute and grab yourself a Varsity Frosted Orange? Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3