lethalweapon3

Because I won't just give it a... rest... Aside from Allen, Garland, and Ty Jerome among the Cavs players designated as Out, sixth-man Caris LeVert is Doubtful as of this morning's Boo-Boo Report, having suffered a sprained wrist midway through Cleveland's dispatching of the Freak-free Bucks. Fellow reserve Georges Niang picked up the slack and chipped in career-bests 33 points and 10 rebounds. Still too early for the Hawks' submittal, so no word on Trae's illness recovery or if Dre's status gets an upgrade. ~lw3

“ATLANTA! This is NOT for you!” I don’t have much ahead of today’s follow-through for our Atlanta Hawks, back home at State Farm Arena for a tilt with the Cleveland Cavaliers (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Ohio). Just repeating the gripe that a team playing the night before a SEGABABA, especially on the road, shouldn’t have to return home to face a team that had a preceding off-day. Just like the Hawks had the last time they returned from Miami to have a refreshed Ja Morant and the Grizzlies waiting for them after one off-day. Today, it’s the Cavs (24-15, winners of 6 straight), who will soon have Darius Garland (broken jaw) and Evan Mobley (knee surgery recovery) back in the fold, but thankfully not today, to rejoin Donovan Mitchell (last 3 games: 36.7 PPG, 40.0 3FG%, 6.7 APG, 6.7 RPG, 3.0 SPG). Cleveland had not one, but two off-days, finishing off Giannis-less Milwaukee by 40 points moments before Dejounte Murray’s buzzer-beater sank the Magic on Wednesday. Our temps could be better this time of year, but looking at the recent weather coming off Lake Erie, I suppose the Cavs have enjoyed their stay in GA. I’m beginning to suspect Atlanta’s Turner Sports executives and producers are the culprits messing with the Hawks’ schedule during the offseasons. “It be your own people,” sometimes. As usual, we get Jarrett Allen “swinging by” the NBATV network’s GameTime broadcast, at 7:30 PM yesterday, to shoot the breeze with hosts on the studio’s makeshift court, before getting escorted back to the hotel right down the road. Allen probably got back to his room in time to catch Dejounte’s foreshadowing halftime buzzer-beater down in Miami. Opposing players arrive, shootaround, eat, sleep, eat, practice, eat, hobnob, eat some more, maybe partake in a little nighttime entertainment (Roman Reigns and WWE had The Farm packed last night), sleep, eat, shootaround, then hop on a bus and get ready to face a Hawks team that, itself, has to hit the road afterwards again. This time around, there’s a brief Cali trip next week, Atlanta following up a visit to Sactown with the emotionally recovering Warriors, likely to be playing their first game in nine days. Upon the Hawks’ next return home, Luka and the Mavs will already be in town. Checking their Apple watches, tapping their toes. At least Dallas needs to skedaddle back home the next night. But the Mavs ought to arrive here in fine condition, having had a night off beforehand, and previously following up on an unplanned four-day siesta with a two-game homestand. Where’s TNT’s Underdog? I demand a congressional hearing. Meanwhile… bring on the Cavs! Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

Trae (illness) joins De'Andre Hunter, Wesley Matthews, and the slowly-improving Mo Gueye among the non-two-way Outs. For Miami, Kevin Love (contused knee) has been upgraded to Available in the latest Boo-Boo Report, while Duncan Robinson (sprained ankle) is Questionable and Jaime Jaquez (strained groin) is Doubtful. 2023's Play-In win last season broke up what remains a five-game regular season losing streak for the Hawks in Miami. A victory today by the heat, as per their GameNotes, would move them into a tie with the 2010-13 Spurs for the 4th-most consecutive intra-division wins (23) in the NBA since six-division play was devised in 2004, while another win Sunday in Orlando would tie them for 3rd (24) with the 2018-21 Bucks. As per Hawks' GameNotes, Saddiq Bey's next successful dish will be the 500th assist of his career. One could quibble with the probability he could have gotten there a little faster (career-low 1.3 APG), but while his jumper is in the tank, we'll take whatever achievements we can get. Bogi hitting a three tonight extends his current Threak to 50, and another tomorrow, assuming he's still a Hawk by then, would tie Kyle Korver for the second-longest in franchise history. No matter what, all he does in Quin, as Snyder's next win will be his 400th as an NBA head coach. ~lw3

“Winner, Winner, Mrs. Winner’s Dinner!” Dejounte Murray marched triumphantly off the floor and into the tunnel, after his game-saving jumper propelled his team to victory on Wednesday night. Amid the throng of fans and employees in the tunnel offering Murray high- and low-fives, Atlanta Hawks grand poobah Landry Fields must have been muttering under his breath, “Operators Are Standing By!” You know the old saw, “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.” In the National Basketball Association around this time of year, that saying gets tweaked. You may not get another chance, to make a last impression, upon the team that’s actively thinking about making an offer for you. That motivation helped Murray size up Markelle Fultz in the waning seconds of the Hawks’ skirmish with the Orlando Magic in Atlanta, coming away with the 106-104 victory for the gleeful State Farm Arena fans. It is that attitude – “I know, I’ll never, ball this way again,” à la Dionne Warwick – that ought to fuel the fire for a Hawks team (17-23) that ought to be doing more every night than just keep holding on. Before facing Donovan Mitchell and the Cavs in Atlanta tomorrow, Murray and the Hawks swing by Kasomething Arena today to deal with the Miami heat (8 PM Eastern, once again, since Atlanta clearly has nowhere else to be tomorrow; no 8 PM tipoffs in MIA until March 22; CLE’s already in town with two off-days; may I speak to a manager?; CBS Atlanta / Peachtree TV / Peachtree Sports Network in ATL; BS Sun in MIA), Micky Arison’s team that knows they can cruise like Carnival into the postseason. Even as teams like New York, Toronto, and Indiana scramble to get their teams a leg-up in the race to avoid the Play-In and fully join the Eastern elite, Miami is fine, either way. Losing a home game to Atlanta in the Play-Ins last season wasn’t enough to keep them from reaching The Finals, and there’s no reason to believe anything will shake out different in 2024. Maybe Riley’s heat will seek to add some depth over the next month and a half, or maybe they stand Pat. Cracking corn, Jimmy Butler doesn’t care. Not needing an All-Star nod for bonus money, Butler (21.2 PPG, 47.4 FG%, 5.0 RPG, 4.5 APG, 1.1 SPG, all lows from past four seasons; up to $100.2 million in salary over the next two seasons) would be just fine with being anywhere south of Indianapolis in mid-February. He could get his wish, if the league’s media and coaching fawns take the NBA’s Player Participation Policy half-seriously. Having cemented his reputation by leading the heat to three ECFs and a pair of underdog Finals trips over the past four postseasons, Jimmy may moonwalk right into an All-Star reserve slot, one (and only one) that should be reserved for teammate Bam Adebayo (career-bests of 21.5 PPG and 10.5 RPG, despite a career-low 50.5 FG%; 20 rebounds vs. BRK on Monday; 28 rebounds in 2 games vs. ATL). Second among NBA East backcourt players in fan votes to start in the ASG, Trae Young, comparatively, still has lots of work to do. The Most A’ight Team in the NBA is doing… a’ight. When the heat (24-17, 1.0 game behind 4-seed CLE, 1.0 game ahead of 7-seed IND) last beat the Hawks here, 122-113 on December 22, that was part of a four-game win streak that raised their record to 19-12. Since then, they’re a meh-diocre 5-5. They most recently got swamped in Toronto, 121-97 (an Ayton House-cold 6-for-28 on threes) on Wednesday, trailing by as much as 37 behind a Raptors team that had an awful lot going on that day. Two nights before, on a home SEGABABA, the heat put up a putrid 31 on the scoreboard at halftime, needing some Herro-ball in OT to escape the Nets, 96-95. Players have been in and out of coach Erik Spoelstra’s lineups due to injuries and maladies. Butler missed the last Hawks game, but Duncan Robinson (21 4th-quarter points) helped neutralize a late charge from Trae Young (16 of ATL’s 27 4th-quarter points) to keep the Hawks at Biscayne Bay. Jimmy Buckets is back, the Toronto game just his second one back since missing weeks of action with a sprained toe. But Butler replaces rookie sensation Jaime Jaquez, until now neck-and-neck with Robinson as the most durable of the heat regulars, who missed Miami’s past two contests and remains doubtful for today’s game due to a strained groin. No matter who Coach Spo fields, he and his team recognize the Southeast intra-divisional games as food. The heat remain unbeaten versus their Dirty South Division foes (15-17 versus everyone else), shooting 49.0 FG% and 40.7 3FG%, and 84.8 FT% as a team through nine games, while forcing 15.3 player turnovers/game (11.9, by comparison, versus Central Division teams like Mitchell’s). Padding their status as a dangerous playoff team by handling their business in-division, Miami has no sense of urgency. Not unless, and until, teams like the Hawks (5-5 vs. NBA Southeast; 11-19 in-conference, 11th in NBA East) give them cause. Gallons of chicken tortilla soup and 70-degrees-all-day SoFla weather could’ve helped Trae (Out for today) recover swiftly from his hopefully-non-COVID illness, at least in time to face off with his frienemy Mitchell tomorrow. Even with Trae as a no-go tonight, the spotlight turns to Bogdan Bogdanovic, Murray (26 points vs. ORL after a pair of lackluster 13-point outings), and every Hawk not named Jalen Johnson, subjects of all the phone calls Landry fields in the run-up to the NBA’s February 8 Trade Deadline. As Young and the Hawks needed someone to answer for Robinson (11 straight 4th-quarter points for MIA), Bogi went 0-for-7 on shots in the fourth against the heat back on December 22, committing take fouls on Robinson to help Miami pad their late lead. Murray nabbed an offensive board of Bogi’s last missed three-point shot, but then turned the ball away on a bad pass, and his own missed three made it all she wrote. Staying true to their shot mechanics, moving and using screens to spring open-looks, and using the pervasive threat of Johnson’s drives to the hoop as a decoy, Bogdanovic and Murray can keep Atlanta’s offense potent, enough to keep tonight’s outcome from becoming yet another layup for the heat. Same for Atlanta’s defense, so long as Clint Capela (and not just team leader Johnson, 7.2 D-Rebs/game to Clint’s 5.6) vies with Adebayo to secure defensive boards, doesn’t sag on pick-and-rolls, and his fellow Hawk defenders guard the perimeter without committing cheap shooting fouls (MIA 82.6 FT%, 5th in NBA). Pulling together, Atlanta can pull out a crucial road victory, spark the potential for a win streak, spoil the hype around Udonis Haslem’s jersey retirement, coax Riley into making a midseason panic move, and maximize their individual values as potential contributors for Riley and the managers of 28 other teams. Victory remains feasible for Atlanta today, and every day over the coming weeks, if each player on the floor steps up and performs like there’s no tomorrow… in a Hawks jersey. Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

2 T's Matthews (strained calf) remains Out along with Hunter (inflamed knee). Ko-B continues piling up the points in the Skyhawks' latest win this afternoon in Wisconsin. Gary Harris (also with a strained calf) is the sole Magician unavailable, along with Franz Wagner (sprained ankle) As the Dubs-Jazz game gets understandably postponed, Bogi mourns the unfortunate and sudden loss of his fellow countryman: ~lw3

“Oh, hey, AJ. Thanks a bunch to you guys. Did you hear, I’ve got Hou Stans now?” When will we get Roger Goodell to stop the charade? The happy accident that allowed Dallas to be “East”, and Atlanta and, eventually, N’Awlins to be “West”, set the stage for the most ostentatious, overhyped division in professional sports to dupe everyone once more. We get it. Tom Landry’s success out of the box to build the Cowboys into annual championship contenders made them look like annoying interlopers in the longstanding feuds between the actual Eastern Seaboard clubs from D.C. (previously Boston), New York, and Philly. Cowboys running roughshod through the East, and the efforts to stop them at all costs, was kind of a big deal for the brave new world of TV. So was Gunsmoke. The 1960s and 1970s are long gone, and the NFL and its media partners are still clinging to fading fables of the past in promoting Dallas’ division as the gold standard. We have arrived in the 21st Century, the third Anno Dominique millennium, and Dallas and their Metroplex pro teams compete out of the NBA Western Conference, the AL West Division, the NHL Western Conference, the MLS Western Conference, and… the NFC East. What? The Buccaneers had to be a bit peeved when they joined the league in 1976. Central Florida’s Team didn’t get the NYC-TV-market bump that their AFC counterparts, the Dolphins, were blessed with after merging into the AFC East from the AFL. Miami shared the former league’s Eastern Division with a Texas club, Houston. But even the Oilers were not invited into the media-heavy East upon their entry into the NFL. The Creamsicle Pirates of Tampa were shoe-horned into an NFC division with the Monsters of the Midway, playing wintertime games in the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. Didn’t work out very well, for quite awhile. With continued expansion and growing media-market balance, the NFL, like all pro leagues, have had chances to get their divisions geographically accurate. Like the Seahawks at the 1-yard line, they’ve chosen to pass, every time. The effect of that shows up every season, when the Worldwide Leader in Shouting About Sports steers the NFL Universe to center around a team that last appeared in the Super Bowl when Yo! MTV Raps stopped being a big deal, and its three faraway rivals. The Cowboys’ booster seat comes at the expense of far more Eastern clubs, specifically the residents of the NFC Dungy South. As the Cowboys got fricasseed at home by Green Bay, this past Wild Card weekend, the Eagles got Baked in Tampa Bay. The NFC South’s repeat-division-champion-by-default Bucs blew the wings off Philly’s helmets. Since the current NFL division format was instituted in 2002, the NFC East has had a Super Bowl Roman Numerals representative just six times, winning thrice. The NFC South has that same number, and are 3-3, too. Even the Dirty Birds, unlike The Boys, have been to The Big Game since 1995, twice. We’re not so different, are we now, NFC Least? Perhaps I’m looking at all this wrong. Maybe it’s in a league’s best interest to have its most goody-two-shoed East Coast-ish club engaged in unending division rivalries with Gotham, New England, Tushpushadelphia, and/or the DMV. Yes, Pat Riley, down there off South Beach, I’m talking about you. Is there any team in the NBA more Atlantic, geographically, than his Miami heat? Let’s Make the Atlantic Division Charlie Ward vs. PJ Brown Again. And just leave us more landlocked southeastern rivals, like the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic playing tonight (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Florida), alone! Atlanta, formerly of the NBA Western and Central divisions, has only fared slightly better in approaching the hallowed NBA Finals since the NBA Southeast Division was forged in 2004. They’ve only come out on top in the division on two occasions. The Magic have four division titles, although three of those came way back when Dwight Howard was kind of a thing. The heat have 12 division banners, or one should say, a banner showing 12 Southeast division titles, among others, in that time. And 13 is looking like quite the lock, already in mid-January, even as Miami’s three leading scorers have missed anywhere from 10 to 20 games as we near the halfway point of the season. The heat are already 9-0 versus division foes, after having outlasted Paolo Banchero’s Magic and blasted the Hornets over the past week. Miami is just 15-16 versus everyone else. They’ll return from Toronto to host the Hawks on Friday, then try to put away the Magic again on Sunday. Before getting smoked in the 2023 Play-In opener, last year’s division winners for Miami went just 10-6. They could go 11-0 before the calendar turns to February, 13-0 before the league hits the All-Star Break. The other four also-rans in the NBA Southeast seem conspiratorial in artificially inflating the heat’s sense of self-worth. The good news for the Hawks (16-23, now 9-4 versus the NBA West after Spur-viving on MLK Day), so long as they continue to profess a desire to be Play-In eligible amid all the tradewinds, is that the Magic (22-18, 8th in NBA East) have clearly become the lowest hanging fruit to pick among division rivals. In November, the Magic bookended blowout losses in Brooklyn with a home-friendly, franchise-record nine-game win streak. Going just 7-12, since the streak topped them out at 14-5, hasn’t dampened the spirits of a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series since 2010’s Eastern Conference Finalists bowed out, with just two brief playoff appearances (2019 and the 2020 Bubble) since waking up from the Dwightmare. For starters, 2022 first-overall pick Paolo Banchero (27.5 January PPG, 8th in NBA) has been fantastic of late. Further, Jamahl Mosley’s club is getting healthier by the day. Wendell Carter, Jonathan Isaac and Franz Wagner were not available, and Joe Ingles DNP’d, when the Hawks last visited Atlanta, leaving Mosley to depend upon second-year second-rounder Caleb Houstan (25 points, 7-for-14 3FGs, 4 assists and zero turns vs. ATL) to break out in his starting lineup. Since pulling away from the Hawks in OT, 117-110, though, Houstan hasn’t launched a second act, and Orlando has failed to score above 100 points in its past four games (1-3). Mosley had to lean heavily on the reserves (ORL 42.8 bench PPG, 4th in NBA, incl. league-high 9.7 FTAs/game), and ratchet up the defensive intensity in the fourth quarter, just to escape New York with a hard-fought 98-94 win over the Knicks on Monday afternoon, raising their road record to 9-13. Quin Snyder would love being able to rely on his team’s elevating second-half defensive intensity and offensive production (ATL 33.7 second-half 3FG%, 29th in NBA, ahead of just the Spurs’ 32.9 and behind the Magic’s 33.8; ATL 38.5 opponent second-half 3FG%, 4th-highest in NBA, part of an NBA-worst 50.2 opponent 50.2 back-half FG%; 4th-worst D-Rating and assist/TO ratio, 5th-worst Net Rating in second halves). As recent homestand runs have further revealed, when it comes to assessing Atlanta’s lottery-quality woes along its roster, well, it ain’t that deep. AJ Griffin, Patty Mills and G-Leaguing rookie Kobe Bufkin are only able to contribute with cameo appearances, at best. Two-way guard Trent Forrest, this month (15.4 MPG in six games) is getting the floor burn that one would have hoped would be going to Griffin, or Bufkin, by now. The other players on standard contracts, when healthy, play just bit parts in what has been an 8-man rotation, down essentially to seven lately with De’Andre Hunter (Out, inflamed knee) still out of action. Backcourt scoring leaders Trae Young, Dejounte Murray, and Bogi Bogdanovic find themselves overtaxed and over-exploited, spinning in mud all the more in games where their Hawks exit for halftime locker rooms behind the proverbial 8-ball. Jalen Johnson gets stretched thin trying to cover for everyone’s shortcomings, and thank goodness he has the boundless energy to do it. The Magic are learning they give themselves chances to win ballgames, even when shots aren’t falling (34.2 team 3FG%, 29th in NBA), by engaging in iso-oriented rockfights (NBA-high 1.11 points-per-iso-possession allowed; NBA-low 23.6 opponent assists per-48), especially knowing they can employ more arms to heave than their opponents. Orlando is up to nine players exceeding 20 MPG, with the two-way guard Trevelin Queen (19.5 MPG) and the recently starting Houstan rapidly catching up on that mark in Franz Wagner’s absence. Garrison, by comparison, Mathews is the Hawks’ 9th-ranked minutes logger, at 11.9 MPG, behind Onyeka Okongwu’s 24.6. Their offense winds up balanced, if low scoring, and not having to ride Banchero too heavily in fourth quarters and clutch situations gives his other young teammates, like Jalen Suggs, Carter, and sixth-man Cole Anthony, chances to grow into key roles. It has been enough to stay afloat, especially versus half-baked teams like the Hawks, for now. Even if the Magic begin to get tripped up, and they fail to figure out a way past the heat in upcoming games, amid this road-heavy schedule, Banchero could soon be ballyhooed, as a deserving All-Star, on a team that might go into the Break with a sub-.500 record. Fancy that. Banchero and Murray’s Seattle, along with probably Las Vegas, will soon be expanding the NBA into 32 franchises like the NFL, and the time will be ripe for the league to revisit rolling southern clubs Memphis and New Orleans into the NBA East. It’ll get kind of crowded, so somebody in the current division ought to make the jump into the Atlantic. So, g’day, Pat. Our Hawks, and the Griz and Pels, will do just fine wrangling for regular-season-ending banners with the Horcats, Wizlets and Magic, thank you very much. In closing… how ‘bout ‘dem Buccaneers? Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

No changes in the Boo-Boo Report for the Hawks as of the 10:30 AM update. Dre Hunter (inflamed knee) and Wesley Matthews (strained calf) remain Out. Charles Bassey's season-ending ACL tear in mid-December shortened the depth chart behind Wemby, and fellow starter Zach Collins (Out, sprained ankle) has yet to play in calendar year 2024. The Spurs' youngest player, Sidy Cissoko, is Out (sprained ankle), while the eldest, Doug McBuckets (sprained ankle), is Questionable. As per Spurs' GameNotes, Sochan's output versus the Hawks, in Atlanta's road win on November 30, had him joining three other NBA players clearing minimums of 33 pts / 8 rebs / 6 asts / 85 FG% / Perfect 3FG% (Barkley '89, Glove '95, Bosh '08). Tre Jones has been elevated into the starting five now that Coach Pop's Jeremy Sochan Starting Point Guard experiment has been suspended to have Sochan aid in rebounding. The Spurs are 2-3 in Jones' five starts. But they had two big wins over two bad teams (+22 @ DET, +36 vs. CHA) in this current stretch, while the Ls were all by six-points-or less (vs. MIL, @ CLE, vs. CHI). ~lw3

Eddie Koiki Mabo-related weblinks: https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/mabo-timeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabo_v_Queensland_(No_2) Patty Mills: Spurs point guard, Indigenous Australian and Bala - Sports Illustrated foxsports.com.au/news/patty-mills-delivers-moving-martin-luther-king-address-before-san-antonio-nba-game/news-story/408786043fefc908fc06b4bf29e625cc ~lw3

The birth home is still open today, despite the recent arson attempt: Events around town, at the Atlanta History Center and elsewhere in the region: ~lw3

All around the world, same song… Rosa Parks’ story moved people. Including an Atlanta-born preacher and a recent doctoral graduate new to Parks’ city of Montgomery, Alabama. Their story, and the preacher’s oration, would move people. Including an enterprising fellow, named Eddie, who hailed from an archipelago of over 250 islands, halfway across the globe. In the early 1970s, Eddie and his wife opened a community school on his country’s mainland, dedicated to children from his islands. Half of the day, students would learn the basic, traditional Western-style education taught in the mainland. During the other half, the pupils would gain instruction on their own traditions: culture, art, language, dancing. The curriculum mirrored the well-rounded education Eddie sought throughout his life. As the school’s principal, bus driver, and cultural instructor, Eddie would help finance this school with his modest salary as a gardener, at the mainland state university named after the first European explorer to arrive there in 1770. He was chatting it up with university history professors about his school, and the land he owned back on one of the islands. The profs glanced at one another with furrowed brows: Eddie doesn’t KNOW, does he? This land is not your land. Subject to the rules brought about by English feudalism, virtually all public land in Australia is considered “Crown land” under national law. That included most of the lands Eddie, and his Indigenous island cohabitants and ancestors, had lived on, roamed, negotiated, died upon, and were buried under, for ages. Crown land can be set aside by the Australian states for public purposes, left vacant, or reserved for future development. At any time as the state decides, that could include the properties Eddie grew into adulthood believing was his, by inheritance. The state, and its far-reaching actors, could also exclude Eddie from setting foot on other islands, as he would soon discover while attempting to travel, and denied entry, as a research assistant for one of the university professors. “For Eddie, the rejection was devastating,” one of those professors recalled. “He was not only landless in the eyes of the White man’s law, he was an exile as well.” Eddie used his relations at the university, and his growing knowledge of history and the law, to advocate for his fellow native citizens. By the 1980s, the emerging argument was that Eddie’s islanders held an orally based “native title” within the properties that later would be summarily deemed “Crown land” by colonials, via sovereignty and annexation. The governing state legislature, in 1985, swooped in with a hasty answer to this concept: no, your “native title” doesn’t exist. It never existed. And, as far as our history is concerned, you don’t exist, either. This land belonged to no one that our ancestors respected when they arrived. Your people were just here on these islands, doing whatever, when our forefathers claimed it for the rest of us. We built this great country, not you. And this whole time, we have been pretty much just holding out for your people to skedaddle. Or vanish into history. Over two hundred years of Australian governance went by before the nation was forced to come to terms with not just the human rights of Indigenous and Aboriginal populations within its bounds, but the foundational acknowledgement of their very presence. Despite the obvious uphill battle ahead, Eddie and his island neighbors, with assistance from legal advocates, took to Australia’s highest courts in order to stake their claims. Eddie’s first major challenge, to his state’s Declaratory Act of 1985, proved successful. The state’s act was overturned, for violating the nation’s new Racial Discrimination Act, passed in 1975 as the waves of America’s civil and human rights ventures washed over the globe. The RDA eliminated the country’s decades-long “White Australia” policy, complete with a “dictation test” as a prerequisite for national entry, intended to shift the nation’s immigration demographics to one predominately British and White Western European. The 1975 declaratory act was originally conceived by state legislators as an end-around to Eddie’s plea, in 1982, to Australia’s version of a supreme court. In what would was his first appearance before the high court as a plaintiff, Eddie sought a judgment that his island people were entitled to island property, based on those individuals’ longstanding customs and laws, pre-colonial native ownership, and their active possession and use of the land. Eddie would not live quite long enough to get his answer, passing away from cancer at age 55. Just over four months later, in the summer of 1992, Australia’s high court ruled in favor of Eddie and, by extension, the nation’s Indigenous and Aboriginal citizens. These inhabitants should not be treated under the law, one justice would write, as “intruders in their own homes.” The next year, Australia’s parliament passed Native Title Act 1993, officially recognizing the rights of those citizens, and acknowledging them as citizens, roughly 225 years after explorer James Cook first set sail. It is an understatement to say that this decision was a landmark. The long-held notion that the entire country “belonged to no one”, later granted a Latin term terra nullius as a handy-dandy doctrine similar in intent to “manifest destiny” upon the colonialists’ arrival, was soundly rejected by the courts. Indigenous people’s rights to land, as argued by Eddie and the plaintiffs, had not been erased by way of colonization. Looking back upon the decision in 2006, Professor Larissa Behrendt pointed to three things that made the case that bore Eddie’s name remarkable. “It overturned the notion that we as Aboriginal people did not exist; it recognized Indigenous rights to land; and it provided an example of how laws that had been used as a tool of colonization could actually be a tool of justice.” “He was so convinced himself in the justice of his case,” Eddie’s friend and historian professor from the 1980s, Henry Reynolds, recalled. “He felt that justice must prevail. And in a way that was the most extraordinary vote of confidence in the Australian legal system. Many Indigenous people said, ‘No. It’s no use. They will never change.’ But Eddie said, ‘No, our court is just and eventually, it will prevail.’” Our court. Our land. Yours, and mine. Around the world, we do see modern-day reverberations of well-established in-group strategy. Contain, constrain, disallow out-group members as unworthy participants of society. Doing so in expectation, if not outright hopes, that some among the disenfranchised out-group will lash out, running violently or just threateningly afoul of the laws, or at least one’s interpretations of said laws. Such acts, alleged, true or otherwise, could then be used as lubricant to justify the relocation, or even the outright extinguishing, of the out-group. By government force, and/or by in-group citizens taking laws and policies designed to benefit them, specifically, into their own hands and arms. Via formal bombs, or firebombs. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., and later Eddie, dared a different out-group approach. There will be no lashing out, no physically pushing back at perceived grievances. Rather, these citizens would go about their business, while assertively, persistently yet peacefully, staking their fellow citizens’ claims to liberty and justice, for all. These and many other activists encouraged one another to dare their governments to take the intended benefits of democracy, land rights, human rights, and capitalism, and widen the lens to see beyond the initially intended beneficiaries. This could be achieved, from within one’s own legal means, with patience, persistence, and without the pursuit of violent overthrows and seizures. For every action, in the direction of justice, reconciliation or equality, there is sure to be an inequal and undue overreaction. Retaliation in Alabama, and throughout the American South in the 1950s and 1960s, came in short order during and after the legal successes borne by the civil rights movement. Much of it came from on high. Here’s but one example. “The South stands at Armageddon. The battle is joined. We cannot make the slightest concession to the enemy in this dark and lamentable hour of struggle… One break in the dike, and the relentless enemy will rush in and destroy us.” No, this wasn’t 1864. So, what is the governor of the great state of Georgia going on about? Marvin Griffin’s Pearl Harbor was Rosa Parks’ Montgomery Bus Boycott, coordinated in Alabama by Dr. King’s Montgomery Improvement Association. Griffin’s message, one (1) day after the boycott began, was a telegram to Georgia’s Board of Regents, urging them not to allow mighty Georgia Tech football to show up for a bowl game, out of state in Louisiana, against a Pennsylvania team with one (1) Black player. That’ll learn ‘em! Parks paying to sit where she pleased was Griffin’s personal Holy War, and Pitt LB/FB Bobby Grier’s footsteps doubled as the sounds of the governor’s dike breaking. You can guess who the Dixiecrat governor, a Citadel graduate, was raised, trained, and well-paid, to believe was his relentless enemy. A riot in Midtown Atlanta ensued after Griffin’s nasty-gram stance went public, but mostly featuring Yellow Jacket student protestors of Griffin that, unlike their state’s governor, were blessed with a lick of sense. Retaliation to Eddie’s posthumous victory came swift across Australia in the 1990s. Some of it was by fiat, engendered by lobbyists of the country’s mining and farming industries. Their organized fear-mongering, noted Behrendt, “has all the hallmarks of the hysteria whipped up by White supremacists that (Eddie’s victorious legal case) would take everyone’s backyard.” Some of it arrived by in-group backlash. People who would not have known Eddie from a can of paint brought paint to desecrate his gravesite, one day after his formal burial. Vandals painted swastikas and slurs on his tombstone, also removing a bronze bas-relief portrait of Eddie. Again, there would be no violent response. His family and the Indigenous community would proceed with his reinterment, this time accompanied by a traditional ritual once reserved for Island kings, a ceremony that had not been conducted there in over eight decades. Eddie’s story moved people not only to repercussion, but to reinvigoration. Indigenous populations across the globe were able to see lights at the end of the long tunnels toward justice, wheresoever they resided. His successful court ruling spurred a commemorative day in the Islands held annually in his honor, along with a week where Australians across the nation celebrate Indigenous history and culture while committing to reconciliation. The push to acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous tribal members (e.g., Project 562) and native land rights (e.g., #LandBack) remain present-day movements that build upon the advocacy brought forth in Australia by Eddie, and by Aboriginal activist and soccer star Charlie Perkins. Their movements carried forth the tireless efforts of folks, like King and Parks, who faced violence and harm at every turn and, without resorting to retaliatory violence, dismissed it all. While adversaries dig in their heels fighting to keep their present worlds framed with the tint of the past, heroes of social change prove capable of focusing on the world ahead, even if they’re not going to be around to benefit from it. No matter the forms of government, no matter the sources of power, King laid out a roadmap to encourage ordinary citizens, like Eddie Mabo, to nudge each nation to “live up to its creed,” making citizens themselves extraordinary in the forward-thinking process of pursuing justice. “This movement is a movement based on faith in the future,” King would say of the activism he led in his 1961 speech, “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience.” “It is a movement based on a philosophy, the possibility of the future bringing into being something real and meaningful. It is a movement based on hope.” Movements move people. Eddie’s paved the way for Indigenous and Aboriginal citizens across Australia. Obviously, people including Eddie’s surviving family, one of whom will be on the State Farm Arena floor this afternoon, as your Atlanta Hawks face Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs (3:30 PM Eastern, TNT, 92.9 FM in ATL). In North America, days before tipoff at the 2014 NBA Finals, as the Spurs prepared to face the hyped-up Miami heat, Coach Pop had another important event in mind as he huddled the Western Conference champs together in front of a video room projector. Eddie Mabo appears on the screen. “Anybody know what today is?” Teammate Aron Baynes, a fellow Aussie, knew the answer right away. “I had no idea Pop was going to do it,” recalled Patty Mills, then in his third season with the Spurs, when his head coach urged his teammates to learn the story of Eddie, Mills’ grand uncle. “I had no idea he even knew about (Mabo Day, June 3 in the Torres Shire), but for him to bring that up in a meeting before the NBA Finals, just to give everyone a heads-up, was very special.” Patty’s father was at the university conference back in the early 1980s when his uncle, Eddie, first made his compelling case for Indigenous land rights. “We’re all like, ‘Go for it,’ Benny recalled. ‘We all know it’s your land, even if the state denies it.” Patty’s parents knew a thing or two about their unacknowledged rights. His mother and her siblings were children forcibly removed from their parents during what was known as the Stolen Generations. As adults, the parents met in Australia’s capital, while working together for the federal government on Indigenous affairs, and they would organize a basketball club for Indigenous girls and boys. Born in the capital of Canberra, Patty would begin dribbling with this club at age four. The first Australian of Indigenous heritage to play in the NBA, Patty’s hoop journey was also paved by another uncle. Danny Morseu, a Torres Strait Islander, played in Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, the first Indigenous basketball player on Australia’s Olympic team. Sport is often the first means by which in-groups come to acknowledge the existence, and value, of out-group members. Beyond skin-deep measures of physicality, the ability to play with and against one another toward desired objectives allows people to observe other’s personalities, spirit, heart, sportsmanship, humanity. Their families, their hopes and dreams, their commonalities. It’s often why adversaries of justice, rolling down like waters, would perceive desegregated sport as the quintessential break in the dam. Australians who would otherwise have grown to disregard, and disrespect, and dismiss people like Patty have instead spent the past quarter-century cheering him on, from FIBA contests, the Nike Hoop Summit and the NCAA’s St. Mary’s College into the NBA, where he began his international pro career 15 years ago. Perhaps most recently, as a flag bearer of the Australian National Team in Tokyo 2020, and as a member of the nation’s first men’s basketball Olympic medalists. His 42 points versus Slovenia earned the Boomers a bronze, in his fourth Olympic voyage with the team. After his breakout in 2014’s Finals, in particular the clinching Game 5 as the backup to Frenchman Tony Parker, Patty would get to celebrate on the stage, proudly wrapped in the blue-and-green flag representing his Torres Strait Islanders. No matter which corner of Australia one hailed from, Islander or otherwise, their hopes, dreams, and pride became tethered to him. There was little surprise, the first MLK Day after Mills’ Spurs won their 2014 NBA title, that Patty stood before the audience of gleeful Spurs fans, one of four Australian NBA players sharing San Antonio’s court that day, to address the global importance of this American holiday. He urged the crowd to salute King’s legacy and his teachings. “My strong belief in Martin Luther King, Jr., is the also the same as Eddie Mabo,” he told the postgame media. “Those two guys are very close together. They both share the same message around the world, here and in Australia.” Faced with institutional, generational adversity, the Mabo and Mills families could have grown insular, and taught their children to despise those who see them as relentless enemies. Instead, they made names for themselves as relentless petitioners, transforming their worlds and doing so within their legal means, and most importantly with a spirit of love. “Love is the only force,” King would famously state, “capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” This year’s theme at Atlanta’s historic King Center is, “It Starts With Me,” named after a children’s story written by Martin’s daughter, Bernice. It emphasizes a truth that resonates no matter where you come from, or for what and for whom you stand. “A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt,” King wrote in his groundbreaking 1964 book, “Why We Can’t Wait,” on the heels of his 1963 Birmingham jail essay, and his watershed speech during the March on Washington. “A movement that changes people and institutions is a revolution.” Moving forward based on hope, rather than entrenching himself in hopelessness and despair, Eddie kickstarted a revolution, one that his family, like King’s, carries forward as a legacy to the present day. A good, righteous, effective movement can move people, from anywhere, in positive, emotional, and perhaps spiritual ways. It can have a global impact, while making meaningful differences at finite, community levels. How such movements begin to move you, and the institutions and people you hold dear, is entirely up to you. Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

Just speaking it out of existence, but even a victory today for the Wizards (6-31) keeps their win-percentage pace well below their all-time franchise low, as the 1961-62 Chicago Packers (18-62), led by future ATLHawk Walt Bellamy and former SLHawk Si Green. As for as franchise history in The District, His Errness was the team president when the 2000-01 Wiz finished 19-63, rewarded the following summer in the lottery with Glynn Academy star Kwame Brown. Larry Drew assisted Leonard Hamilton in the latter's one crack at pro-level coaching. Wes Unseld, Sr. took over the executive reins at that point, as MJ made his third and final comeback as a player (who could ever forget Mariah at the ASG). Missing out on Gil Arenas nearly all season, the Wizards from 2008-09, this time under Ernie Grunfeld's watch, also checked out at 19-63. With Wes, Jr. assisting coaches Eddie Jordan and Ed Tapscott, that was one year before the infamous run-and-OMG-he's-got-a-gun season. At least they got John Wall for all that trouble. When Trae, Clint, Jalen, and Saddiq each registered double-doubles on New Year's Eve, they made the Hawks the first team since Pelicans 2018-19 (just gonna guess Jrue, AD, Julius, and uh, Elfrid? Solomon Hill?) to have multiple games where four players double-doubled. Before easing off the gas in the fourth quarter, those Atlanta players became the first to lock in their double-doubs before the fourth quarter since the Clips (Blake, CP3, Barnes, and D-Jordan) humbled Kent Bazemore's Lakers in 2014. ~lw3

“I don’t care! What you do!! Just, do it, FASTER!!!” We’re back already, with the Washington Wizards, who are out here, once more, just wingin’ it. As am I, trying to put the finishing touches on the MLK Day gamethread draft before this game (7:30 PM Eastern, Good Ol’ Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, MonSpoNet in D.C.) wraps up. I believe it’s reasonable to suggest that Wes Unseld, Jr. is rotating, in and out of his lineups, the Wizard players he has, since the players he probably wants are N/A. It should not be possible to have both Jordan Poole AND Kyle Kuzma, playing every game, and be this poor of a League Pass draw. The reason is, Kuz and Poole Party made their names in this league as fun, frolicky role players on high-profile teams, and the hunch was that either would be ready for a glow-up into franchise superstardom elsewhere. Now it looks like they’ll be stuck with Poole for awhile. Kuzma less so since his contract, also guaranteed through 2026-27, is at least declining as he prepares to enter his age-30 seasons. Every contract dollar Kuzma cedes along the way, essentially, is reserved for Poole. Poor Daniel Gafford is stuck out on Center Island. Ball-control caddies Tyus Jones and Delon Wright are hoping some decent team will make the call for them pre-Trade Deadline, while the other vets on the Wizards (6-31; 3-17 over past 20 games), like ex-Atlanta Hawks Danilo Gallinari and Mike Muscala, remain hopeful they can get attached somehow. You’re insisting on multiple firsts for Kuzma, Monumental Basketball? Go ahead and keep your bags unpacked, Kyle. It’s gonna be awhile. All of this would be palatable if literally any one of the SG/SFs the Wizards invested years of drafts and development into would emerge as a key player. A star would do wonders, but a key would open doors, just fine. Gafford, formerly of the Bulls, has been here since 2021, and is only here because 2018 first-round draftee Troy Brown couldn’t stick the landing. 2019’s first-rounder, burly forward Rui Hachimura, plateaued and got shipped midway through last season for a rental of Kendrick Nunn and a gaggle of future second-rounders. The Lakers are pleased to have him, along with the draft pick selected next in that year, and the pick that came before them both. 2020’s first-rounder, lotto pick Deni Avdija (declining salary rookie-scale extension, through 2027-28, kicks in next season), is just kind of like, there. I mean, he’s no De’Andre Hunter, but he’s a’ight. Avdija starts alongside Poole, in part due to seniority, defense-by-default, and because none of the SG/SFs reeled in during the subsequent three drafts are panning out, either. Corey Kispert? M’kay. Johnny Davis? Just, no. Oh, how the current Wizards management regime would kill to have seen the prior regime drafting Jalen Johnson (or, Alperen Sengun) instead of Kispert right now. Then again, had that happened, they’re probably not employed here. On the team that ranks dead-last in both O-Reb% and D-Reb% categories, how the Wiz (okay, maybe just Unseld) would love to have Gafford coming off the bench, behind a Clint Capela. Or at least alongside Steve Kerr fave Trayce Jackson-Davis, the rookie Washington sent to G-State for cash. The price for dumping Bradley Beal’s contract last summer was the opportunity to flip CP3, drag in Landry Shamet, lock down a few future first-round swap options, and take a flyer on a stringy Euro prospect in Bilal Coulibaly, instead of a built-up college star in Jarace Walker. They’d love to play this glut of wings together, if only they could finagle a single pairing that works on the court. Kispert’s top 2-Man pairing, with Coulibaly, is a minus-16 per 100 possesions, as per bball-ref. Deni, with either Corey or Bilal (minus-12 each), has far from a grand slam. Heck, they’d slay right now just to have Vit Krejci back. They dumped him and Admiral Schofield’s contract for a year or so of Cassius Winston, who now toils in Türkiye. The Hawks second-round draftee that Washington did eventually bring in-house, Ryan “Sticky Fingaz” Rollins, is probably headed to The Big House soon, so the Wiz cut him loose this week. It leaves Unseld, extended through at least next season, to just say whatever gets him through his media obligations. “He’s improved his three-point shooting,” Junior says of his newest 10-day contractor, a G-League call-up. Hamidou Diallo was a scintillating 7-for-33 on triples with the Capital City Go-Go. “We needed someone who doesn’t swipe body wash from Target,” would have been more on-target. Thank goodness the Wizards ran into a stumblin’, bumblin’ Nets team back on December 29, and a wayward Blazer club the week before that. Otherwise, the MLK Day home game for the Wiz versus the Pistons would look extra-dire. And how nice it was for the Hawks to let the Zards back into the game, while up 15 with 2:16 left to play on New Year’s Eve (“what are you doing?”), by flubbing nine free throw attempts (11-for-20, 13-for-17 in the prior three quarters) just as Wizards fans sought to get home early? Atlanta nearly beat out Times Square, in dropping the ball. Being back home at State Farm Arena for a minute has been nice. Still, having to host back-to-back games versus the league’s two highest-pace teams (the third-highest, San Antonio, will be road-running here on Monday) is a tough ask for a Hawks team (fifth in Pace) that runs-and-guns, while shooting itself in the talon, enough as it is. Unlike last night’s atrocious bench effort (reserves outscored 73-28, in the 126-108 loss to the Rese-less pieces of Pacers), Atlanta will need deep production at both ends, inside and out (76-48 Indiana paint-point advantage on Friday). Critically, they must put this game on ice when the Wizards resort to white-flag fouls, so the MLK Day game won’t have the Hawks feeling like they’re playing six games in three-and-a-half days. The only sense-of-urgency for Washington should be to clear the way for Coulibaly to Boy-ar-dee and cook for the rest of this season, to the delight of what fans they have left. On the contrary, if you’re only at 6 or 7 wins by MLK Day, and tanking season has already arrived, why not just do what Unseld is doing, and roll out the same, tired-and-true lineups every night? Wizards pro personnel director Travis Schlenk seems to have his hands full. The path forward for the ex-Hawks exec seems to involve somehow helping his new GM-boss unload the congestion at the 2- and 3-spots, maybe someday finding a shooting and defensive talent good enough to make Poole a well-heeled, shot-jacking sixth-man. What’s Schlenk’s boss’ surname, again? Oh. Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

The Race to 1,000 Threes continues tonight. Bogi (149th all-time) now needs one to fall, while Trae (150th) needs two. If they can find it within themselves to get to triple #1,003, they'll pass your friend, and mine, Danny Ainge at 148th. While 2T Matthews is out with a strained calf, 1T Mathews has been upgraded to Questionable (sprained ankle) ahead of tonight's action. Pacers rookie Jarace Walker is Out with one of those take-your-pick respiratory things flying around, while Aaron Nesmith (sore shin) and Jalen JustSmith (sore back) remain Questionable as of the 4:30 Boo-Boo Report. ~lw3

“How many points can we allow in THIS quarter?” Hey Siri. Has any NBA team ever plunked 150 regulation points, or more, on an opponent at least three times in a single season? Siri? SIRI? Sorry, folks. I think I may have broken Siri’s brain. The Indiana Pacers have a chance to do this three times in a row, at the expense of the Hawks, and for the second straight time at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena tonight (Check yo local listings!!! CBS Atlanta, Peachtree TV and 92.9 FM in ATL, Bally Sports Indiana). I should have just checked Pacers GameNotes instead. No NBA team has ever met-or-exceeded the 150 points mark on more than four occasions in NBA history. West, Wilt and Goodrich’s 1971-72 world champion Lakers, and Iceman and Special K’s 1978-79 ECF Finalist Spurs, crossed the threshold four times, each team versus four separate foes. After beating Wemby’s Spurs, 152-111 in early November, then the Hawks in both mid-November (157-152) and last Friday (150-116), Indiana stands ready to make history. Should they settle for just 140 or so, the Pacers still get one more crack at the Hawks in mid-April’s season finale in Indianapolis. Breaking the buck-fitty barrier again, though, will prove tougher for coach Rick Carlisle’s club in the near-term, not so much having to do with what the Hawks (15-21) bring to the fray. First-place Boston disrupted Indiana’s six-game win streak a day after the Pacers blitzed the Hawks on Saturday, holding the hosts to a mere 101 points. But Indy would get a second-straight shot at the Celtics at the Fieldhouse two nights later. The 2024 All-Star hosts will spend the next month keeping the Fieldhouse floor dry, after their probable All-Star sensation, Tyrese Haliburton, slipped and strained a hamstring shortly before halftime of the payback match. Up 60-54 at the time, the Celts, who sat out All-Star Jayson Tatum to heal up a sprained ankle, would widen their lead to 11. But Jaylen Brown couldn’t quite put away the pesky Pacers, who used an inspired sprint from its bench brigade of Bennedict Mathurin (37 combined bench points this season vs. ATL, most among non-Haliburtons aside from Myles Turner’s 38), Buddy Hield, and T.J. McConnell to surge back into the contest. With 44 third-quarter points, Indiana seized the lead and fought to secure the 133-131 victory. It’s not quite clear how long Indiana will have to make do without Haliburton (expected to miss a couple weeks after his diagnosed Grade 1 hammy strain, with an update coming possibly sometime next week). Even after beating the Wizards in the follow-up game against the Celtics, it’s not quite clear that what the Pacers (22-15) were experiencing wasn’t a dead-cat bounce. Atlanta’s opponent tomorrow, the Wizards held, if you will, Indiana to just, if you will, 112 points in its eight-point loss at Indy (104 points allowed tying IND’s season-best). Whether or not the Hawks help provide some clarification on the fatal-feline theory tonight, there remains reason to believe the catnip the Pacers have enjoyed might run out soon. In addition to feasting on defenses like the Hawks’, Indiana has been able to drill down on their divisional foes (9-2), including the Bucks (4-1), while avoiding taking too many trips out West. Their seven games versus NBA West foes, at 3-4, is matched as an NBA-low only by Milwaukee. The Pacers have 7 of their league-low 13 back-to-back sets remaining, and three of the six they’ve played, like last weekend’s games versus the Hawks and Celtics, were home-home. That cozy travel schedule, with no trips beyond the Central and Eastern time zones, concludes after today’s final horn. While Haliburton hurries to heal up, Indiana heads out immediately after this game to Denver, extending this six-game road trip with five Western opponents. Sunday and MLK Monday, it’s Nuggets and Jazz on a back-to-back. Thursday-Friday, it’s Kings and Blazers. The only time Indiana has had a full road back-to-back, in mid-December, they lost by double digits at 3-20 Washington (137-123) and Minnesota (127-109, as Haliburton rested a bruised knee, and the Pacers arrived from D.C. late for their third game in four nights). Once they depart for home from Phoenix on Sunday, the Nuggets will be waiting for them for a homestand that includes the Suns, again, and the 76ers, perhaps with Joel Embiid upright again. Back to back. Later, they’ll close out this month and kickstart February with garden trips, to Boston and red-hot New York. The Hawks could do their part to trip up the Pacers before their arduous trip kicks in. That is, if they can figure out a way to keep Haliburton’s replacements from running up the score. One of the few teams with more home-home back-to-backs this season than the Pacers, Atlanta (with an NBA-high 11, to Indy’s 8), can finally begin to drill down on defensive precepts from the comfort of their Brookhaven practice facility. Better late than never, but the Hawks began to sink their teeth into the Embiid-less 76ers in their 139-132 thriller on Wednesday evening at The Farm. Philly’s supporting cast tried to bleed out the Hawks with 1,000 cuts to the hoop earlier in the game, but Atlanta adjusted enough to make Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris (24 of PHI’s final 26 points) feel like they were going 2-on-5 the rest of the way. The Sixers were “held”, if you will, to 27 fourth-quarter points, then denied access to the paint and the hoop by the Clint Capela-less Hawks, producing a mere 7 points in the overtime session (Clint has been upgraded to probable, after missing the Sixer game with his sore Achilles). Making Maxey overwork early on the defensive end paid dividends late as Philly’s lead scorer fouled out of the contest, his Sixers up 132-129 with 100 seconds remaining. As Jalen Johnson hit a big three-pointer to cap an amazing night (25 points, 3-for-4 3FGs, 6-for-6 FTs, 16 boards incl. 14 D-Rebs, 7 dimes, 2 blocks) and as he and Trae Young (probable for tonight, sore shoulder) made their OT freebies, Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu (19 points, 11 rebounds incl. 6 O-Rebs, 2 blocks) ensured Philly wouldn’t score again. Coming off the bench for Haliburton’s replacement (second-year guard Andrew Nembhard, 6-2 as a Pacers starter) in the Pacers’ starting five, McConnell (10 assists and 3 steals in 23 bench minutes vs. ATL on Jan. 5) won’t feel as overtaxed as Maxey was on defense. Key for the Hawks will be ensuring that the high-tempo Pacers cannot get going with easy transition and fastbreak scores. Indiana, like Philadelphia, will find keeping Johnson and Atlanta out of the paint tougher this go-round, particularly if Obi Toppin returns full-time to the starting five while Jalen Smith (questionable vs. ATL) heals a sore back. Toppin offset his usual defensive woes by going 3-for-6 on threes (teammates 5-for-20) versus Washington, and the Hawks must ensure he doesn’t artificially inflate Indiana’s tally tonight by parking himself in the corners (career-best 42.6 corner 3FG%), anticipating open looks while the Hawks scramble to double Turner. November’s 157-152 game in Atlanta was a springboard for the Pacers’ dash to the middle of the NBA East standings, and a depth charge for the water-treading Hawks. Will a renewed sense of occasional defensive aptitude, help Atlanta look more like a team worth taking Siri-ously during their homestand? Will the Pacers’ foreboding sense of the schedule to come, and the lingering uncertainty of Haliburton’s status, stop Indiana from being taken Siri-ously? Will Atlanta Siri-oulsy allow another 150-burger tonight, anyway, while those wascally, wested Wizards await their turn tomorrow, watching this game from right up the street? Siri? Google? Alexa? ChatGPT? Is there any not-a-body out there? Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

Eh, what's one more log on the ol' fire? ~lw3

Could this post be any more timely or what? ~lw3

He talkin' 'bout Practice!... ...but One T will still sit this one out after spraining his ankle in Orlando. It was nice to have a numerical rest advantage over other teams, for the week that it lasted. Two Ts is Questionable with a sore calf, as is Clint with his sore Achilles. Dre Hunter (inflamed knee) is reportedly turning a corner, but not in time for tonight's action. On the Sixer side, Embiid remains joined by Robert Covington (Out, also with a swollen knee). Melton remains Questionable as of the early-morning Boo-Boo Report. Tobias Harris returns after missing his first game of the season in Saturday's home loss to The Fighting Simone Fontecchios. The homestand is expected to help Atlanta catch up on its league-low 14 home games thus far. Hawks GameNotes reminds us that November 22 was the last time Atlanta had a second-consecutive game at The Farm. They also cite Elias Sports when noting the last time the team had just 14 home contests in its opening 35-game slate, the team was still in St. Louis, swan-songing it in 1968 (nice 16-1 start, though), with "neutral games" thrown in the mix at Philadelphia (versus the Pistons?), Baltimore (versus the Sixers??), and Miami Beach. Can you tell that I would really like to meet the league's schedule-makers? In the race to 1,000 Triples, Bogi needs just two, while Trae needs just four. Some pour soul had to confirm that NBA teammates never crossed that particular threshold in the same game. I cannot believe The Process years (and I guess the post-Chuck pre-A.I. seasons) dragged on for so long that the Hawks had a sizeable lead all-time on the Sixers. Maybe Syracuse really struggled with St. Louis back in the day. But anyway, Atlanta's 179-175 lead is narrowing after losing five-straight versus Philly. ~lw3

“Come to see! Victory! In a land, called…” A half-million army of happy All-Star voters can’t be wrong! Before delving further, a mea culpa, to precisely 11 of y’all. Yesterday, on January 9, 2024, Anno Dominique, around noon, was the first time I recalled that I have a team to tend to, at Hawksquawk XXIII on Yahoo!. It’s OK! I’m only, like, 52.0 games behind. I’m killing it with Fantasy Tankathon XXIV lottery odds! I am so happy with my default Auto-Pick draft haul, what with LaMelo Ball and Bradley Beal and Tobias Harris and Andrew Wiggins and Jalen Duren and whatnot carrying my water. Much like an AWOL defense secretary, or a wylin’ Bay Area power forward, going forward, I vow to do better. Insofar as it’s humanly impossible to be faring any worse. Now, over on ESPN? Different story! Your Boy’s Reign of Terror came to a merciful fantasy end on Sunday after seven consecutive weeks of unmitigated Dubyas. I have but one gentleman to thank for my glorious run to the top (fine, two. You, too, KD. Whenever you show up). I am embedded among the sleeper cell of individuals slamming the VOTE button for THE Trae Young, near-future NBA All-Star, every 24.001 hours. This legion includes people who care not one whit about the musty, fusty periodic results of the team (now down to 8-27 against the so-called spread, after deciding that disappointing Atlanta Hawks fans in regulation, versus shorthanded Orlando, who is now 25-12 ATS, best in NBA East and just ahead of 23-12 PHI, wasn’t suffering enough) he leads onto NBA floors. Shorties being aggressively quixotic on the hardwood is always a cool story in the league, and it is sure to draw sympathetic supporters, especially some of us longtime residents of He Too Little Nation. That alone doesn’t account for enough of what has surely blown past one million All-Star votes by now on Young’s behalf by satisfied customers. What matters way more to some of us finicky fans is: do you contribute to winning… fantasy wins, that is to say? Back in October, my trusty Lethalputer told me it was safe to peer through my Torch Red-colored glasses to select Trae third-overall in my ESPN draft, the very first guard off the board. Nikola 1, Giannis 2, Trae 3 (???), Tatum 4, Joel Embiid 5. Yes, subsequent first-round recipients of Luka, Rese, and SGA all thank their lucky stars. They’re all looking up at not just constellations, but Your Boy, well atop my points head-to-head league fantasy standings. How’s that dust taste, peeps? Y’all need a cloth to clean out your gullets, or…? Joel paces ESPN point fantasy leagues with nearly 65 fantasy points per game. Take a short jaunt down the list, though, and you’ll find Trae, with a blistering 50 faux PPG, the second-best mark among East guards behind Señor Haliburton’s 58. We will know a lot more, a week-or-so after the Indiana 150’ers weekend return to Atlanta, about whether Trae leads the field for *replacement* Eastern Conference All-Star starter, rendering appeals to a dismissive media punditry unnecessary. There are several categories available, over on NBA Dot Com, for All-Star fan voters to slice through the noise and choose their starting fave-fives. The most obvious, arguably a tad lazy, of those is Fantasy Points (FP), as conveniently calculated by Dot Com stats. Tyrese’s 50.2 leads all East guards. Then, in second place, there’s Trae at 48.6 FP, closer to Haliburton than Donovan Mitchell (46.5), LaMelo (lol, 44.6), That Other Tyrese Over There (Maxey, 42.9), Scary Terry (42.0, thanks Melo), Dame Lillard (41.7), and Jalen Brunson (41.0) are to Him. In seasons past, where The Association simply listed players in alphabetical order by surname, players like Young were at a decided disadvantage, particularly with voters whose index fingers tire easily. These days, as one can sort by actual Points (Trae 7th overall, 3rd in East), Assists (Trae 2nd in East and overall), and Fantasy Points (9th overall, neck-and-neck with KD for 8th), Trae (unlike Squawk XXIII, for my past three months) is no longer out of sight, out of mind. Now, as my three-year-long ESPN Fantasy Football reign o’ terror just concluded with a deflating second-prize finish, it is worth re-emphasizing that, when it comes to your fantasy-sport superstars, their best ability is availability. Dagnabbit, McCaffrey. Didn’t we almost have it all? Few NBA greats understand this better than Embiid, whose Philadelphia 76ers are in town (7:30 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, NBC Sports Illadelph). The reigning MVP is the sole player compiling over sixty Dot Com FP’s per game (63.3, four points ahead of NBA West leading vote-getter Luka) every time he steps on the floor. It’s the “stepping on the floor, every time” part that’s threatening to become a problem, for him even more than the Sixers (23-12, 3rd in NBA East, 4.5 GB BOS). Having built up his career in the Iversonesque heart-and-soul spirit, of playing and excelling through pain, that Philly fans crave, Embiid (last 16 games: 36.5 PPG, 12.0 RPG, 6.2 APG, 2.2 BPG, 40.4 3FG%) wants to prove that last year’s MVP-winning dash was no one-hit wonder. But the new Triple-P policy of player participation has him on thin ice for MV-rePeating, or even collecting any of the league’s most prestigious end-of-season honors. He has already missed eight games due to injury/illness. Make that nine, tonight, as a swollen knee will have him back on the shelf, with 46 games to go after this evening. Eighteen is the requisite number that would push him (min. 65 games played w/ min. 20 minutes in each; maxed out at 68 games for his career in 2021-22, 66 in his MVP season) out of the running, leaving only “All-Star Starter” up for grabs. Even that status, for the reigning MVP, is endangered. The first-place Celtics’ Tatum hovered less than 100,000 votes behind Embiid after the first ballot returns were revealed last Thursday. Giannis, despite his pointing fingers at the equipment manager for the second-place Bucks’ ongoing issues, had a cozy 300,000-vote lead over Embiid for the East’s top frontcourt slot. Without Joel, Philly did beat Paolo (and Franz) in Orlando by 20 points (hee hee) just a couple weeks ago. Yet that’s one of only two wins, versus six defeats, without him. Maxey and Harris’ team arrives in Atlanta, well rested, but only after getting dunked in the Baptismal pool by John Collins (9-for-10 FGs) and the Jazz in Philly, suffering a 120-109 defeat without Embiid’s services back on Saturday evening. It was Philadelphia’s second-straight L after losing by 36, with Joel soldiering through his bum knee for a half-hour, at division-rival New York. Coach Nick Nurse’s club would rather be surging toward the top of the NBA East, not risking a descent into its mushy middle (seeds #4 through #8 are all at 21-15, 2.5 GB PHI). Have no fear, Sixer fans, the Hawks are here! Additionally, Philly ought to have Harris, De’Anthony Melton (questionable, sore lumbar) and Furkan Korkmaz all suiting up again. In Embiid’s case, though, it will help his cause in the run-up to All-Star Weekend if the Sixers are winning ballgames, and if he, not Maxey, remains the primary reason why. Meanwhile, The Partridge Family couldn’t get Trae Young fantasy fans any happier, no matter how fast the hapless Hawks (14-21, 5-9 at home, 9-17 vs. NBA East, but 2.5-point favorites tonight! Thanks, Joel…) hurtle toward a wholesale rebuilding around Him and, until he gets tossed under the proverbial bus JC-style, too, Jalen Johnson (zero points on one shot over a full twelve 4th-quarter minutes during the 117-110 OT loss @ ORL, joining the scoreless Clinkongwu Onyekapela center contingent). I can speak for Spud, fantasy Landry of Trae over on Squawk XXIII, when I declare virtually any day in which Trae plays (probable for tonight, despite his sore shoulder), and isn’t getting himself tossed mid-game by the refs, a pretty darn good day. Plus, keeping Atlanta Play-In Relevant, through April, will assure us fantasy GMs that the durable Young doesn’t get McCaffreyed by real-life team managers at Fantasy Playoff time. In the meantime, we’re like the fella on the right in the meme enjoying the vista from above, grinning ear to ear, as the bus meanders around a drab mountainside. Doubling as a dour Hawks fan on the other side of the bus, the one thing I beseech of my King Rayford III (NBA-high 8.6 fourth-quarter PPG, tied w/ Giannis) is to please bestow upon your subjects more fourth-quarter free throw makes. Hey, freebies are fantasy points, too, and Your Boy needs to pad his weekly leads! Young (2.0 clutch FTAs/game, behind only Embiid’s 2.3; 82.5 FT%, to Joel’s 95.2) had two of five crucial missed free throws that Atlanta would have loved to have sunk on Sunday. That was before his last-minute layup, a steal by Capela (questionable, sore Achilles), and a dime from Jalen to a dunking Saddiq Bey scrambled the Hawks into a fruitless overtime session. I was hopeful that Hawks minority owner Grant Hill would have left no doubts by now, but is there any way us first-place fantasy managers can weigh in on the Olympic starters for Team USA, ahead of Paris 2024 this summer? After all, as Jay-Z might advise G-Hill, Paris is the place where all Trae’s naysayers can be Outside, living their best lives. The Hawks have a chance, finally with some rational at-home rest, to kick off a five-game homestand by rattling off wins over the Embiid-less Sixers, the Reesyburton-less Pacers, and the swagger-less Wizards, all before the Dejounte-less Spurs arrive for MLK Day, and before Atlanta tries to get its lick back versus the Wagner-less Magic next Wednesday. Failing that, as is likely? I just need Ice Trae -- The Man, The Viper, and The Prosecution -- to continue balling so hard, ESPN’s Fantasy Commissioner will want to fine me. Yup! It’s Your Boy! Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

Go Gadget Go! ~lw3

His fiery December shooting has come to a smoldering halt, but Bogi's eagerness to Just! Get! One! Three! To Go! keeps his Threak alive at 43 in a row (3rd-longest in The Association as it stands; 33.3 FG%, 26.3 3FG% over past 7 games). His paltry made three against the Pacers was also enough to move his franchise Threak rank to 3rd all-time, just ahead of Mookie's 42 games. Conversely, and also according to Hawks GameNotes, Dejounte (58.6 FG%, 50.0 3FG% in last 3 games) joins Jayson Tatum as the sole NBA'ers averaging 28+ PPG on 50/50/80+ splits since New Year's Eve. According to Magic GameNotes, The Piano Man's earworm couldn't escape players' heads on this day in 1996. A snowbound team headed for Philly from Cleveland for a game was forced to wait there in Allentown, PA while the Sixers game got postponed. We wouldn't see him in the second round, but on this day in 2013 Jameer Nelson became the Magic's all-time franchise leader in assists. In 2009 OTD in Atlanta, Dwight passed Shaq to lead the team in made free throws (whether he still had room to go on missed free throws is unknown). Not that they ever know what to do with it, but the Hawks have an obvious health advantage with everyone aside from Dre Hunter (inflamed knee) and Mo Gueye on the mend. As of the 12:30 PM Boo-Boo Report, starters Goga Bitadze and Anthony Black remain Questionable with illnesses, Wendell Carter and Markelle Fultz are Questionable with knee tendinites, and Franz Wagner, Gary Harris, Jonny Isaac and Jingles all are declared Out. ~lw3

“All this, just for getting Krispy Kreme on Ponce back open?” Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame 2016 inductee, and NBA75er, Dr. Shaquille O’Neal will have his #32 jersey elevated into the rafters at E-Z Car Theft Center next month, in Orlando, the city’s NBA team announced on TNT this past Thursday. News to which I offer, to Shaq, “Congratulations!” And to which I say, to the Magic, “What took you guys soon friggin’ long?” It’s not like people never abdicated small markets for the glitz and glam of big-city teams before. Aside from tanking in hopes of getting a shot to draft a lottery stud like Chris Webber (say, who wound up winning that guy, anyway?) or at least Vin Baker, the Bucks had nothing of significance going on by the time of their home finale in April 1993. That was when Milwaukee chose to hoist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s #33. It was barely four years after their three-time NBA MVP and one-time NBA champion (all while with the Bucks, who won his services on a coin flip over Phoenix) hung up his Lakers uniform for the final time. Vince Carter won no chips anywhere. But even as his NBA tenure was abruptly reaching its end with the Atlanta Hawks, the Toronto Raptors were already warming to entreaties to get Air Canada’s iconic #15 into retirement. “Soon,” an appreciative Masai Ujiri has intimated at every turn. We’re heading to three-digit uni numbers soon enough in most pro sports, anyway, so there’s no reason for palms to sweat over running out of jerseys to hand out. Certainly not pro teams rocking just 15-to-18 man rosters year-over-year. Definitely not the Madge, who have only numbers 6 (for Bill Russell, league-wide) and 49 (honoring 2016’s Pulse victims) on lock. During their brief NBA tenures in Central Florida, Jeremy Richardson, Justin Harper, and C.J. Watson all asked for #32 to be sewed into their jerseys during the past decade-and-a-half, and the Magic brass didn’t bat an eye. Richardson, who wore #32 when he debuted as a Hawk in 2007, was wearing that jersey for Orlando while The Big Aristotle was twilighting with the Suns, still two seasons away from his merciful retirement. By my math, it took four years for Kareem, by then the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, to get his Milwaukee number mothballed. It surely won’t take 13 years, the time Orlando had O’Neal waiting, before Toronto does the same for Vince. Yes, Shaq was only around O-Town for four seasons before bitterly bailing. But he was the centerpiece in elevating the still-minty-fresh Magic from a fun lottery laughingstock to nose-to-nose-with-MJ-level heights, with off-court exploits that made Orlando 90’s Cool, for a hot minute. You don’t think much about Fu Schnickens, but on the occasion you do, you’re not thinking of Brooklyn. How much time does an NBA official let go by, like the Magic’s longtime hanger-on Alex Martins, before letting bygones be bygones? Perhaps I’m just answering my own question. The Magic, unlike the Bucks but probably the Raps, simply have been waiting for something of significance to transpire, after these future Hall of Famers formally retired from the league. It’s just that in Orlando’s case, nothing much has been going great, not since Dwight pulled a Shaq on them in 2012. Perhaps, that is finally about to change. Thus, the sea-change. 2022’s first-overall pick, peering around his new NBA home arena, probably felt a bit discombobulated upon realizing that 1992’s first-overall pick is commemorated only in the stands, on a Ring of Honor that risks running out of room once Nikola Vucevic makes his way onto it. Paolo Banchero realizes he’d have to do an awful lot for this franchise before a bigwig tells some future ten-day contractor that, sorry, #5 is off-limits. An awful lot Paolo is doing, indeed. Following up on a career-high 43 points, in a double-OT SEGABABA defeat at Sacramento this past Wednesday, by Friday he and his Magic took the steam right out of Nikola Jokic’s engine. Banchero’s first career triple-double helped Orlando escape Denver with a 122-120 comeback win, reinvigorating a slip-sliding team ahead of their return home today (6 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM, BS Florida) to face the slop-sloppy Hawks. A 3-8 stretch for the Magic cooled the jets of a team that appeared ready for takeoff since these teams last met in Mexico City. They returned home from that trip to dust the Lillard-less Bucks, and shortly thereafter rattled off nine impressive victories in a row. But big losses to Brooklyn, and subsequent defeats against some tough teams, were made tougher for coach Jamahl Mosley as the injuries and illnesses piled up. Mosley entered the Kings game without the services of Cole Anthony, Markelle Fultz (questionable, knee tendinitis), Joe Ingles (out, sprained ankle), Jonathan Isaac (out at the ATM, strained hammy), and others. Those others didn’t include Banchero’s frontcourt co-star, but just over five minutes into that game, the Magic lost Franz Wagner (out, sprained ankle), too. By Friday’s tipoff, Mosley would discover there would be no starting center in Goga Bitadze (questionable, illness), and no backup big in Wendell Carter (questionable, knee tendinitis), with The Joker looming fresh off his Warrior-killing, Curry-style buzzer beater in San Fran from one night before. Anthony returned and added a team-high 23 bench points in the win at Denver, but teeth-cutting rookie guard Anthony Black (questionable, illness) exited less than five minutes into that game. Still, unlike some teams we know, Mosley’s defensively oriented Magic (5th in both D-Rating and D-Reb%, 4th in opponent TO%) took advantage of the Nuggets’ tiring legs in the second half. They limited the hosts to 53 points in that half while holding Jokic and his teammates to 9-for-33 from three-point distance for the full game. Having made no significant offseason transactions, unless one counts them picking up former Jazz coach Quin Snyder’s old chap Joe Ingles in free agency, the Magic banked on internal growth among its nine draft picks retained since 2017, and Mosley, charting the path forward. Orlando’s backcourt, though, needs to begin making the strides that Banchero (team-highs of 22.7 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 4.9 APG), a potential All-Star reserve, and Wagner have made, particularly on offense. Through 20 starts, albeit just over 20 MPG, Black has averaged 1.8 APG and 1.6 3FGAs/game. No one on Orlando’s roster clears 40 3FG%, except for Ingles, whenever he plays, and Carter (10 starts, 13 appearances), whenever he can play. Selected three picks before Wagner in 2021, Jalen Suggs’ career-high of 27 points in this weekend’s shorthanded road win over the reigning NBA champs suggests the Magic (42-40 in 2018-19 breaking up 10 under-.500 seasons since 2011-12) might indeed be ready to make a meaningful leap. Celebrating their 35th season in existence, the Magic’s owners probably felt a need to show the home fans this stale franchise is finally willing to make changes, which would explain the sudden switch from the Multilevel Marketing Arena name. Mosely, the Magic coaching staff, and the young players are doing their parts to ensure any major transformations don’t involve them anytime soon. I believe it won’t be long before a future BIG3 Hall of Famer, and a current trusty backup big in Boston, get to see jersey retirement ceremonies in Atlanta’s basketball arena, either the current or the next one. Just keep one’s nose clean and don’t, like, get drunk and run anybody over or something along the way, and commemoration of your contributions in defining a decade of Hawks Basketball, for better or worse, will happen while you’re still standing. This goes for The Trae Young (41 points, and one useful assist, to Dejounte Murray, among 8, vs. ORL @ CDMX on Nov. 9), too, no matter how long #11 endures interorganizational dysfunction, and absorbs the team’s arrows for wholesale defensive disarray, before vocally seeking greener, or purpler, pastures. Maybe not right away, but not over a dozen years after his storied NBA career is a wrap, either. A statue? Well, we’ll see. Lingering pettiness over retiring a jersey number, for just a few years, after an NBA legend spurned your desired long-range expectations? I can dig it. Still, who did these Magic folks think they were? Washington (North Carolina) High School? Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

The Fieldhouse has become a bit of a Terrordome for the home crowd when the Hawks come to town, as Atlanta has won three of their past four games here, and six of eight overall, as per Hawks' GameNotes. Our Dyn-O-Mite JJ, coming off another career-high in scoring on Wednesday, is cited in the GameNotes as the only NBA'er, aside from Warrior-killer Nikola Jokic, to average at least 15-and-10 on .600/.300/.800 shooting splits since the Christmas Day games. Bogi is seven short of 1,000 career three-pointers made. While that would be welcome tonight, we'd rather Clint Capela spread out, over several games, the six O-Rebs he'd need to get to 1,000 for his career. No big changes on the Hawks' side of the Boo-Boo Report, except newest Skyhawk Vit Krejci now has a subluxated shoulder, whatever that means. Bruce Brown and Andrew Nembhard remain Questionable ahead of tonight's game, stretching the Pacers' defensive capacities even if those two play through their strains and sprains. Acquired in mid-December, vet forward James Johnson's contract is due to be renewed, or dropped, by Sunday, so he may figure in today's action. Carlisle surpassed Frank Vogel as the Pacers' winningest all-time coach last month, but he'll need a few more winning runs, like the present one he's on, to get above the .500 mark with Indy (260-265). ~lw3

“Why must EVERYTHING be a CONTEST???” Whoo-hoo! Friday Night Fireworks, yeah! The Indiana Pacers are startling easy to figure out. Whenever they fail to break 120 points, they lose (0-7). When they’re unable to hold opponents that are not known as the Atlanta Hawks below 130 points, to say nothing of 150, they lose (1-7). When they scored 50 third-quarter points but had no answers for the Hornets’ Mark Williams in the final minutes of a 125-124 home loss, dropping their record to 3-3 back on November 4, that was the sole defeat that didn’t fit into the anemic-for-them offense, nor the bar-the-door-Katie defense categories. Those account for 13 of the 14 losses Indy has absorbed on what everyone otherwise agrees has been a banner season, for them and their fearless leader, Tyrese Haliburton. In so doing, Trae Young’s Atlanta Hawks (14-19), visiting Gainbridge Fieldhouse today (7 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast for now, 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Indiana), have become the Bizarro to Haliburton and the 19-14 Pacers’ newfound Clark Kent persona. More to the point for DC fans, the Zoom, to Indiana’s Flash, due to both squads’ comic insistence on scoring and ceding buckets at breakneck speeds (ATL 5th in NBA Pace, IND 2nd). The Hawks ring up 141 points on a hot but weary OKC Thunder defense, manage to somehow win by 3, and the prevailing mood is that of a dried-out, cold Varsity chili dog with mustard. The Pacers scored 142, too. But they beat up on Giannis’ despised Bucks, winning for a second-straight game and the fourth time in their past five matchups against Milwaukee, and it has been as spicy around Naptown at St. Elmo’s cocktail sauce. Trae goes 13-for-17 from the field, and 7-for-8 from the free throw line, for 37 points and 8 assists, as his Hawks drop 152 regulation points back on November 21. But he and his mates allowed five more, including Buddy Hield’s triple that got the Pacers up to 155 with under a minute to spare. The shouty headlines became, “Pacers clinch spot in the IST!” “Tyrese Haliburton drains nine 3-pointers in 37-point haul!” But for the Hawks (120.0 D-Rating, 26th in NBA; IND’s 120.3 ranks 28th) not guarding just incrementally better versus the Pacers, who knows whether Indiana’s dream season would’ve veered off-course? It nearly did in the wannabe-prestigious NBA Cup Finals, when Anthony Davis throttled the Pacers to a paltry-these-days 109 points, and Indy began to worry they’ve been hurtling too close to the sun. Going from Vegas to Detroit, Indiana struggled for several quarters to put away the Pistons in their next game. Then they gave up 140 in a loss to Gameball Giannis, ushering in a 1-6 swoon that featured losses to the Wizards and the Grizzlies in Ja Morant’s home debut. But five straight wins, piling up the points on Thibs’ trade-shortened Knicks and the Bucks, and all is right with Pacer World once again. Reverse the records and swap the teams on each side of the 157-152 hyphen back in November, and maybe it’s Trae (118.9 D-Rating) drawing the accolades unilaterally directed to the NBA East’s leading All-Star backcourt vote recipient, the do-no-wrong Haliburton (119.4 D-Rating). (Props to the fan voters, btw, as I have seriously underestimated you. Lillard, though? Not even Maxey or Brunson? We still have work to do out here.) “Obi Toppin needs less minutes! Obi Toppin needs less minutes!” was the refrain in coach Rick Carlisle’s head during the post-IST losing skid. Replacing Toppin (122.3 D-Rating, worst among non-Wizard and non-Hornet starters), in the starting lineup with literally anybody else, in this case Jalen Smith (5-0 in the starting frontcourt beside Myles Turner) since rookie Jarace Walker remains mothballed, was enough of an incremental maneuver to turn frowns upside down. To this point, Haliburton and the Pacers, unlike the Hawks, have been able to divert critiques of their equally poor defense. The trick, for them, has been to rely on cap-eater Bruce Brown (questionable, in-and-out lately with a bruised knee bone), Aaron Nesmith (questionable, sprained back) and T.J. McConnell to shoo would-be shooters off the three-point lines (NBA-low 28.0 opponent 3FGAs/game). Then, funnel everyone inside (NBA-high 63.0 opponent 2FGAs/game) and let Turner, Isaiah Jackson and the Pacers’ jumping jacks try to contend around the rim without fouling, the last part easier said than done (22.5 personals and 27.5 opponent FTAs/game, 31.7 contested twos per-48, all 29th in NBA, ahead of only the Pistons). Indiana knows, with Haliburton, that they can score inside the arc more efficiently than anyone else (NBA-best 59.5 2FG%), and that threes are especially better than twos when you ensure your guys, like Hield, jack up more of them (9.8 more 3FGAs/game; 4th in 3FGA%). So who cares about keeping scores low? Get your defensive matadors up on the three-point threats, coax opponents into putting the ball on the deck and drive inside, and Olé! Only two teams have an opponent differential greater than Atlanta’s +2.5 field goal percentage points on defended shots. Yet nobody talks about Indiana’s league-worst +2.8, because winning, and nobody has the stomach to speak of the Wizards (+2.7) at all. The only teams worse in the NBA East than the Hawks when it comes to their sub-70 D-Reb%? The Pacers (68.4%), and the Zards (65.9%). Again, no one cares if you’re above .500 and the Play-In line. I’m no Igor Kokoskov, or whomever Quin Snyder entrusts to make sense of Atlanta’s atrocities at the defensive end, exemplified by the Thunder’s 79 second-half points on Wednesday. I do think I have a Jacksonian approach that might pay dividends, in the same incremental manner Lloyd Pierce’s make-them-feel-you schemes keep Carlisle’s crew afloat. In a nutshell: Hands Up! Man Up! Thanks to Dejounte Murray and Bogdan Bogdanovic, Atlanta ranks third in the league for deflections per-48, tied for 5th in steals per-48. Thanks to Garrison Mathews and the reformed Young and Clint Capela, they’re fourth in charges drawn. Yet they’re bottom-basement in defense even when stratifying for pace, no matter whether it’s the Pacers or the Pistons or some paupers suiting up against them. I don’t argue that it’s fake hustle, so much as it seems Hawk defenders are too busy reaching and being taught. Emphases should be placed on staying in front of your man and not losing sight when threatening to double team; hedging on switches; KYP’ing and keeping hands up on shooters’ shooting-hand sides; properly boxing out and preparing to rebound when opponent shots go up; and not getting caught dawdling, at either end of the floor, while preoccupied with whether shots are about to swish the net. Less steals, charges, and selling out while diving for offensive loose balls; more well-contested threes, lane cloggers, and defensive boards. As with the Pacers, it’s all easier said than done, but it’s much harder when you’re not consciously and collectively trying to do it. In a mirror-image world, Dejounte’s improved three-point shot (22.5 PPG, 42.9 3FG% in last 8 games), Capela’s downright automatic free throw shooting (last 16 games: 80.4 FT%, 59.6 FG%, 13.6 PPG, 11.9 RPG), and Bogi’s and Jalen Johnson’s respective 6MOY and MIP candidacies would all be newsworthy, on a national scale, had the Hawks and Pacers pulled a Freaky Friday. Unless and until things change, in the standings and on the scoreboards, we have no choice but to just kick back and enjoy these two teams obliterating the Over (presently at a historic 262, for tonight, and counting) for those who wager responsibly. All gas! No brakes! Say, where’s Dan Quinn when you need him? Let’s Go Hawks! ~lw3

No additions to the inactive list for OKC as of the 5:30 PM update. Lightly-used third-stringers Tre Mann, Davis Bertans and Aleksej Pokusevski were all DNP-CD'd yesterday vs. BOS, while developmental big Ousmane Dieng and the two-way players were deemed Inactive. ~lw3

To be fair, I can see now why Vaughn won't play them. ~lw3