RandomFan

That reminds me, I can't remember who it was, but someone in chat asked if Bud would sit out Korver and Millsap our next game vs Houston. At the time I said probably; but looking at the schedule ahead, I'm changing that to probably not. He will probably sit some people for our game vs Phily on March 7th. It's the 2nd game of a back-to-back, and it's winnable even with sitting people. We have 2 days off between our next game at Houston, so no real need to rest them for that game. Then we have one day off, followed by a back-to-back with Cleveland here and at Philly on the 6th and 7th. The players sitting I would expect Millsap, Korver, and Pero since he never plays the 2nd game of back-to-backs. It's possible Schröder will sit as well. That might even mean we get to see a start for Horford at PF, with Brand and Moose handling the C rotation like they did for the Heat game.

Maybe he's counting Coach Bud as #15? LOL

Acting like he's a prime Bill Russell? You're not much for analogies are you? Sure, saying a backup C that is making a very small salary in the NBA is the same thing as comparing him to Bill Russell, in some universe....I guess...

But is it replaceable for the $1,250,000 salary he makes this season? That is a big factor people don't acknowledge - very low salary for the minutes he provides.

Love the picture. Remember that show from when I was a kid.

And almost as soon as I typed that, it looks like Rose might actually be back before the end of the season. Apparently he had a 10 minute surgery and was very simple. Now has a 4-6 week rehab, which would return him to the court a few weeks after we get Thabo back. That definitely changes things for me. I'd rather see Toronto in that 4th seed now.

Chicago still isn't going to be a pushover. They do still have Butler, Pau, and Noah - 3 All-Star level players when fully healthy. Losing Rose definitely hurts them, but they will still be a tough out. That being said, I'd still prefer them to finish in the 4th spot and face us in round 2 instead of CLE or TOR. We seem to struggle vs TOR for some reason; or perhaps they have just caught us at the right times this year. Whatever the reason, I'd still rather only have to play one of CLE and TOR, which happens if they play each other in round 2 as the #2 and #3 seeds.

I think you meant Utah and Philly. NY is Jackson and his triangle offense. Philly's coach is from San Antonio and is trying to implement what they and us do, but with younger players.

About as well said as possible.

Whoa. Didn't quite see that one coming. Somebody has their fee fee's hurt.

Well this should change things considerably. Chicago is pretty much done as a contender, at least for this year. http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/story/_/id/12378016/chicago-bulls-guard-derrick-rose-undergo-surgery-repair-torn-meniscus-table-uncertain Derrick Rose to undergo surgery Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose has a torn meniscus in his right knee and will undergo surgery, the team said Tuesday. Rose reported earlier in the day with right knee pain. An exam and subsequent MRI confirmed the tear. A timetable for Rose's return will be determined once he has surgery, the team said.

Haha, I keep trying to tell you guys that Bud loves him some Pero - for reasons that apparently most of you don't see. http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/basketball/budenholzer-plans-to-stick-with-Antić/nkHxq/ Budenholzer plans to stick with Antić 3:04 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2015 Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer has no plans to change his rotation in regard to Pero Antić. The Hawks reserve center has struggled with his outside shot, particularly from 3-point range, this season. Antić has made 77 of 213 shots, including 35 of 122 from 3-point range (.287), and averaged 5.7 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. Last season, his first in the NBA, the Macedonia native made 123 of 294 shots, including 56 of 171 from 3-point range (.327), and averaged 7.0 points and 4.2 rebounds. Budenholzer was asked about Antić’s struggles following practice Tuesday. “It’s the same thing we’ve talked about since Pero got here,” Budenholzer said. “He does so many other things well. I do like it when he shoots it and it goes in. That would be preferable. I do think, (with) some people, there is too much emphasis put on him shooting – making, not making. When you look at his impact on the game and all kinds of different statistical things, he is a huge positive. We tell him to keep shooting. We believe in him and he’ll make shots.”

Good article about some nuances of our defensive scheme and the freedom and trust Coach Bud has instilled. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/72380/the-hawks-defensive-muppet-show By Kevin Arnovitz ESPN.com MILWAUKEE -- Everything you’ve heard about the Atlanta Hawks’ appealing style of play -- the elegant motion, the silky shooting touch, the sharing of the basketball, the beautiful choreography -- not much of that was on display the first three quarters on Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee. What’s been less discussed, though, is the Hawks’ solid No. 7-ranked defense, behind which they locked down the Bucks for a 97-86 win. “It was a complete turnaround [defensively], a lot better than the past few games,” Hawks forward Paul Millsap said. “The aggression was there. The discipline was there.” Millsap made a distinction between effort and discipline, a variation on the old John Wooden trope, “Never mistake activity and achievement.” The Hawks aren’t a team predisposed to phoning it in. But in their recent spate of ugly losses, there’s been a lack of precision, which is death for a scheme that relies on being in the right place at the right time, Exhibit A being their 105-80 hemorrhaging at the hands of Toronto on Friday night. “Last game we felt like there was no discipline,” Millsap said. “We have to have help. We have to have our big -- he’s got to be back there. We got to have guys rotating. We have to have guys boxing out.” The Hawks nailed their coverages on Sunday and, even better, applied their smarts to shore up what could’ve been some real vulnerabilities. Case in point: One of the better defensive sequences of the night for Atlanta came in the second quarter when the Hawks left Dennis Schröder out on the floor to guard the bigger O.J. Mayo. Sniffing the mismatch, the Bucks dumped the ball in to Mayo in the post against Schröder. In an instant, Hawks center Al Horford blitzed Mayo, pinning the Bucks guard against the end line. The Bucks aren’t dummies, and they did what any team worth its salt would do in that situation -- send the guy Horford was guarding, in this case beloved former Hawk Zaza Pachulia, on a basket cut. But there was Mike Scott, hardly a nominee for defensive player of the year, sliding over from his assignment on the weak side to wedge himself between Pachulia and the rim. After Mayo kicked the ball out of the double-team to the perimeter, the grenade landed back in his hands with the shot clock expiring. Another Horford trap, with Mayo losing the ball out of bounds against the pressure. The Hawks don’t run a lot of traps, which is why I asked Horford if that was a new coverage scheme triggered when Schröder was matched up against a bigger shooting guard. Turns out that was entirely Horford’s call. “I saw an opportunity, and we can do that because I know my teammates will cover for me,” Horford said. “There’s a lot of trust.” Just as the Hawks run a good amount of read-and-react offense, they're given the same kind of freedom to make intuitive, opportunistic decisions on the defensive end as they are in their vaunted offense. Most coaching staffs in the league won’t vest that kind of trust in their team, either because the sense is there isn’t a collective wherewithal to manage those kinds of decisions, or because they’re control freaks who prefer schemes with no room for errors in interpretation. Not so with the Hawks. “That’s the beauty of our team -- trusting each other, not only on the offensive end, but the defensive end,” Hawks defensive stopper DeMarre Carroll said. “Our defense is just like our offense. Coach allows freedom.” With freedom comes responsibility, and for the first time in a good while on Sunday, the Hawks played on a string -- “like Muppets,” said Carroll -- and accountability is fundamental to that process. Otherwise, for example, Pachulia is left alone under the basket, where Mayo finds him for an easy two. Therein lies the difference between good and bad defensive teams. Even at 44-12, the Hawks aren’t without weaknesses. They struggle on the boards, ranking dead last in offensive rebounding percentage -- though, admittedly, Mike Budenholzer subscribes to the coaching school that preaches transition defense, even at the expense of the second-chance opportunities. But the Hawks rank only 23rd on the defensive glass, which is a cause for concern. On Sunday, the Muppet Show cleaned up, collecting 77 percent of the Bucks’ misses and gobbling up more than a third of its own. In a game in which Atlanta was outshot from the field and equaled at the free throw line, the margin was crucial, as were the 24 Milwaukee turnovers the Hawks forced with plays like the Horford-Schröder trap. After the game, the visitors locker room at the Bradley Center was cheery, as the Hawks rushed to catch a flight back to Atlanta, where they’ll take on Dallas on Wednesday night. In front of the locker of Kyle Korver, whose three 3-pointers during the first 150 seconds of the fourth quarter stretched a 2-point lead to 11, sat a large pizza. This for a fitness freak who carries boulders across the floor of the ocean during the offseason? “Sometimes you just need the calories,” Korver said.

I'm looking forward to that CLE-GSW game. We all know CLE is playing better, but that game will give us a better idea just how much better they have gotten. Pretty sure that is a game both teams will be up for.

Or it could be as simple as what Millsap said after the Bucks win today: Paul Millsap On better defense: “Man, a complete turnaround. A lot better than the past few games. The aggression was there. The discipline was there.” On defensive effort: “It’s a little bit more than effort. The effort is there most of the time. The discipline is not always there. Doing what we do. The rotations. We stayed disciplined in that.” It's all about them remaining disciplined and doing what they are supposed to keep doing. And they got away from that, for various reasons.

Nobody.

http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/basketball/hawks-work-to-put-lopsided-loss-behind-them/nkGRj/ 4:27 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, 2015 The Hawks held a video session Saturday as a final postmortem of their lopsided home loss to the Raptors the previous evening. There were enough ugly details to go around from the 105-80 defeat that snapped a 12-game home win streak. Coach Mike Budenholzer was asked what the video session showed in particular. “That we weren’t good,” he said. There were plenty of issues. The Hawks: Shot a season-worst 33 percent (29-of-88) from the field. Shot a miserable 21.1 percent (8-of-38) from 3-point range. Committed a season-high-tying 23 turnovers and allowed a season-high 15 steals. Trailed by as many as 35 points. “We just weren’t good,” Budenholzer said. “You can make up all kinds of excuses, come up with reasons, but at the end of the day we weren’t good defensively. We weren’t good in a lot of ways.” The Hawks returned with the lackluster effort after not having played for eight days because of the NBA All-Star break. Fourth-fifths of the starting lineup, and the coaching staff, were part of a whirlwind weekend in New York that meant little rest. Other members of the team vacationed in tropical locales. However, it’s worth noting that the Hawks have lost four of their past seven games after winning 33 of 35 games that included a 19-game win streak. They blew an 18-point lead to the Celtics and lost in the final second of the last game before the All-Star break. The Hawks have lost two consecutive games, something they’ve done only twice this season. Paul Millsap said there are issues — especially on defense — that have become a problem of late. “It’s been for a while,” Millsap said. “Things have lingered around, things we’ve got to tighten up on. It’s really just tightening up a lot of things that made us successful and we’ve gotten away from. “The last seven have not been up to our standards. Not up to what we are capable of doing. It’s about us getting back to playing close attention to detail and the basics.” Millsap said the film session was beneficial in showing those details that need to be fixed. The Eastern Conference-leading Hawks (43-12) need to move on, as they play at the Bucks on Sunday afternoon. The teams have split the two games played this season, with each winning on the other’s home court. The Bucks won by 30 points Dec. 26. The next night, the Hawks won by five points despite shooting 36 percent, the season-worst before Friday’s game against the Raptors. The Bucks (31-23) are sixth in the East and have won four consecutive. The Bucks were active at the trade deadline. They dealt Brandon Knight and Kendall Marshall to the Suns and acquired Michael Carter-Williams from the 76ers and Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee from the Suns. Carter-Williams is listed as doubtful with a right foot strain. The Bucks will also play without Larry Sanders (personal). Budenholzer said the Bucks present problems because of the number of lineups they can use during the course of a game. “They’ve given us problems,” Budenholzer said. “I think (coach) Jason Kidd has done a great job throwing unique lineups. You have to be on your toes and prepare for different things. … We are going to have to play well and be mentally sharp for whatever it is they are doing. Stay within our normal things, but you have to be prepared and aware of what they are doing.” _____________________________________________________________________ Seems like similar talk that happened right after the Bucks and Lakers losses that led to us going on a 33-2 stretch. They've lost focus and started listening to everyone tell them how good they are, and forgot the attention to detail and hard work during the games it took to make them that way. These next 2 weeks will go a long way towards determining if they simply overachieved or if they can find that groove again. My money is on them being able to find that groove again.

Less Filling!!!

What? I said Wilcox was the acting GM then too, not Bud. But Bud is in charge. It's not a question of believing or not believing who is actually the person with the final say-so; that question was answered from Koonin's mouth himself. But this is silly. We're arguing over something unimportant at best.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sources--teams-starting-to-believe-ray-allen-won-t-play-this-season-213116271.html Among numerous NBA executives with an interest in signing free-agent guard Ray Allen, there's a growing belief that Allen will not play in the league this season.

He was the acting GM then too. Nothing has changed. But Bud is still in charge of basketball operations; which means Wilcox still reports to Bud in the grand scheme of things. But again, it's all collaborative. So the pecking order is really irrelevant.

He plays the same position as Korver. So not really a need.

Atlanta chief executive Steve Koonin said Friday that Ferry requested an indefinite leave of absence after making remarks. Head coach Mike Budenholzer will take over the operations of the team. http://zeenews.india.com/sports/danny-ferry-steps-away-from-atlanta-hawks-operations_1469197.html http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/basketball/q-and-a-with-hawks-coach-mike-budenholzer/nhT3z/ Q&A with Budenholzer Q. So (CEO) Steve Koonin comes to you and says he wants you to assume the general manager duties, how will you juggle both roles? A. We have an incredible group here with our management and our basketball operations, scouts, assistant coaches and medical staff. I think it’s what we feel is the best solution in a tough time. I’m excited to continue to fight for our guy, protect our guys and protect what we have been building and continue to move us forward. We have done everything collaboratively since I arrived. So in a lot of ways as much as possible we are going to continue to work and continue to do business. In a tough time, this is the best solution. Q. With the roster as it stands, there isn’t a lot of do. Will you lean on the staff and are there others outside the organization you can bounce ideas off? A. With our roster for the most part in place, the players are always the most important thing and so I think if we continue to keep our focus on the players, making sure we have the right group here. (Assistant GM) Wes (Wilcox) and his group will continue to work and we are always looking for ways to improve and get better. I’m open and will lean on people occasionally but the more we work together and move us forward the better we are going to be.

That you accuse others of confirmation bias is beyond the pale.

"I think the bigger question though is what are we going to do when we aren't clicking on offense? We'll need to run our offense with extreme precision to void off all the rebounding battles we will lose." --- No offense, but isn't that kind of as obvious as saying something like 'we need to score more points than the other team in order to win the game?' If the offense isn't clicking, it's hard for any team to win any time. We must look at 3 different levels of offensive performance: 1) Way above average 2)Average 3)Way below average When you get #1, that's when we get the 20+ point blowouts. #2 is what we usually get, which usually means we win the game when combined with our outstanding defense. This is also how you lose games when you miss a few crucial buckets down the stretch, or you run into a team that is playing way above average on offense. (This is what happened in the Memphis loss, we simply missed a few crucial buckets down the stretch, and they didn't). #3 is what leads to losses, no matter how well you play or rebound. Reducing the amount of times #3 happens is what makes good teams good. But it IS going to happen from time to time. (This is what happened in our loss to New Orleans to break our streak). The Boston loss wasn't any of the above. It was all about us just losing focus and not trying hard: as admitted by both Millsap and DMC.