atlguitar

Horford's 3 in Bynum's face was pleasant., as long as he doesn't turn into Josh.

Zaza has made himself more useful lately?

Seemed to be good chemistry between Marvin and the bench team led by Teague ... almost as if Marvin's mindset was "Aw shucks I guess I have to step up because my C (Zaza) and SG (Wilkens) aren't scorers" - so I wonder what it would look like if Powell started over Marvin. I know nothing about Powell's endurance - but he shoots well enough from past the paint to where Josh could stay inside where he should be. Marvin, Jamal, Wilkins, Teague (+ Zaza/Collins) would be a bench team that's fairly balanced defensively and offensively, if a bit undersized (Teague steals, Wilkins guards bigger) Why was no one stopping Glen Davis? Where were the hard defensive fouls?

Besides some open lanes right next to the basket it just bugged me when he had the open 3 at the buzzer and chickened out on the shot - shot clock expires as Josh receives the ball. Marvin has done this before as well.

Drew has to change Wilkins' mindset about deferring at every opportunity

Most of all I'm just grateful that this year I can count on one hand the number of times that I've given up on a game ("no way are the hawks going to win the way they're playing today, I'm changing the channel"). They used to make it more evident when they were gonna lose - you could read it in their faces.

25 games into the season and I am liking this team's consistency. Even though the players' stats seem to be alternating between hot and cold more so than last year (when Josh would go through long stretches with guaranteed 14-18 points), as a unit I think they are more competitive game by game. Looking at the 9 losses .. only two were we just behind the the whole game, and not in it at all - The 91-108 loss to the Bucks and, easily the worst game out of the year, the 76-99 loss to the Celts. That's 2 blowouts out of 25. The 2 other double digit losses were somewhat excusable. The other 7 losses: -4 points (Suns) -4 points (Magic) -4 points (Jazz) -5 points (Mavs) -6 points OT (Nets) -12 points (Heat) -16 points (Spurs) If my memory is correct, in all of the these the games were tight going into the 4th quarter - as opposed to last year when it felt like we were playing many games where we were trying to come back from a large deficit in order to win. We could have won any of the the first five on that list and the last two - well - their 4th quarter offenses were just clicking exceptionally well. We also had no Joe. The idea that we only beat the bad teams is pretty popular, but I like the idea that this year the Hawks are rarely playing with no energy for the majority of the game. 23 of 25 games, we have not been down the whole game by a big deficit. Especially since Thanksgiving they seem to have a renewed sense of purpose. In summary the team seems to be competing in more quarters in more games. I don't know if it has more to do with coaching or the improved bench - but it looks like we're done getting blown out in 4 consecutive playoff games.