DS17Fanboy

Im not a fan of Josh Smith in the current ATL situation, but THJ, Holiday and Patterson are those "long run" ideas. When gambling, I'd rather see Lance coming in with a chip on his shoulder. Indiana Lance would do wonders on so many bases where this team lacks. And he's still young and been in bad situations. But surely he's a risk. But thats also why you could get him at all.

This team can still beat anyone in the east in a series and CLE more so compared to last year because of the realization of adding more depth in the paint. Maybe a bit less intensity and media attention during the reg-season wouldnt hurt so much come play-off time. Maybe the teams that have us figured out now should just continue to believe that they do. Lets come up with something that doesnt include being loosers. Will we beat Curry or SA. No? But tanking to cover that ground?

I dont worry to much fundamentally. He spend allot of time this off-season with KK. Adjusting your game often bites back in the short-run on the center-stage of pro-basketball. Last year Dirk worked on a quicker release so his faltering athleticism doesnt have to do as much work to get shots up. That looked ugly as hell for great stretches. This year it looks great, but he also looks more athletic than last year though, so I think he realized he cant just let athleticism slip away. I think its quite similar with Dennis. He atm tries to mesh parts of his game he masters with parts he doesnt, so also things he masters(or isnt particulary bad at) go wrong because he isnt doing those things from a place of comfort. You can also see this in his lay-ups. He misses allot of those as well. B-Ball is very much mental. I hope he can get it together. Time will tell. He needs trust though and play.

You mean the first half where his turn to play got us the 10+ point lead in the first place? Or the second half where he made 1 TO and was 2 out of 2? God this board is just awful. First ya'll are whining about him making to many TO's while having the energizer bunny role, and then when he plays under controll, he supposedly is holding back all that great offense of Scott, Moose and Brickmore...you know why he has high usage, because his talent outshines the whole entire ATL bench together. Mack...GTFO with Mack. I cant hear that name anymore just because of games like this where Dennis isnt even to blame and could have been a reason ATL won if the starters wouldnt waste away. but 1 TO changed everything yada yada yada washwomens talk

^Hey maybe the "schematics" include different roles for AL and Sap. Maybe Al as the C is much more involved in defensive tasks behind the perimeter-defenders... I dont see Al as the type that plays soft for a contract. And if he would he'd be stupid, with the low numbers and all. Maybe Bud wants an Antić still around. Maybe Bud would bench players doing stuff on their own all the time....

What Horford does very well and he does it in a very consuming fashion, is protecting the paint from driving opponents, hence ends up with his back away from the basket and not being settled for rebounding. Big's often feast in our paint though, also without offensive rebounds. I think Bud'd strategy includes giving away lots of areas of the game. I think he gives away way to much. Its all nice and all to play with two undersized bigs and a small SF, but for Christ sake at least let them act like bigs sometimes. Millsap though is a stud and beasting. Dont know how long before the gas runs out with him.

I disagree. He might be the backup PG, but his lack of contribution also as a starter is part of what is loosing tight games. Personally I think he tries to fit in to a new role and be more pass-first and with that lost his instinctive game. U know, when you start to be more careful in situations you miss many split-second opportunities and end up in situation where you're forced yourself in to a bad play. The other day I watched Mavs vs SAN and Sam Elliot said something about some bad playing new player "he tries so hard to fit the system that he forgets who he is". I feel similary with Dennis. I hope he can mesh his style with the new duties, but Im doubtful. He's a diva and often plays compoundingly worse once things are not going his way. I think in this stage of his career, Hawks need to give him his space and utlize his cat-like instincts and speed while he still has it. Kid needs to play.

lol, yes Dennis made 2 dumb TO's and missed the last shot, but did everything last games people here wanted. He plays under much controll, which is also why you dont see him being "frisky" all that much lately with the drives and such only scoring 19 points in the two losses as a starter. And dont know if I like that, because I think his marque is being frisky and doing stuff. However he actually did the pass-first PG game very solidly and you could see the usual ATL patterns doing what they always do. He also had 19 assists on 3 TO's in these two games. I didnt see any "anckle passes" either. But my hope is he can mesh the frisky and pass-firts type games into one given more time to master the latter in the NBA. What I do see however, is absence of DMC, which in games where Bazemore plays above himself, is not very noticable. The ATL gameplan just lacks his movement and decoying. Also horrible enterior defense against both BKN and BOS. Look where all these points where made. Jarret Jack btw had 49 points and 21 assists last two games. In the two games against Dennis he had nothing special going on. It wasnt even him setting his big guys up, who made crazy shots and putbacks. But we know we have problems regarding interior D. What really lost us the game and prevented a lead was pure BKN luck. They had every bounce going in. While we rimmed them all out. Also those 3 Jack FT's was the most obvious ridiculous foul I've seen in years.

I think Splitter has allot of upside to us still. He gets allot of good touches all over, but fumbles around. He has a much higher career FG% than this year. Once he grows in the culture he will be more impactful. Huge upgrade over Antić. The team all in all did not defend well in the paint and individualy. Boston isnt copieng us. They pounded us with all their high energy guys. Also Dennis plays under much more controll last games. He basically did just what some here wanted. Surely you get 2-3 situations where he drives or creates his own shot. Teague does so as well. Dont pretend Teague doesnt. And thats what needs to be done sometimes. What is it with this mantra of having a few sequences in your mind of nice passing and finishing. You can not play entire games like that. Dennis had 7 assists and just as many hockey assists last night. Srsly this is stupid.

OK then I'd like to take the opportunity to say Dennis's play looks silky smooth out there. I enjoy just his style. It is beyond swag. Sometimes I can see he's also a talented soccer player from just the way he moves. He took some of that into his b-ball. Im sure of it. Also I enjoyed the michael jackson song last game at NO and Dennis carrying the ball forward. He's into it. And I want to take a little time-out to point out that I enjoy that as well beyond winning and stats.

What it does do, aside from certain disadvantages like clogging the lane, is that it is a recipe against certain teams who will have problems running the floor up and down with us. I wasnt a fan of the 2pg line-up in many previous games, where mostly Dennis was subbed in to make up for personel-loss. But as a destinct tactical matchup it might prove quite effective. There are some teams who will get troubled by that, specially as the game goes on...which also was the case last game. And as much as the NBA game has changed to a more passing-game, it has also become more of a running game. Also, what people forget when seeing Dennis and Jeff score lots of points(36 points, on 48 FG%) between the two of them last game, is that Brooklyn's Jack, Brown and Larkin scored only 10 points on 31 FG% between them. Whatever the case with Denni's "woes", hes been balling on D and showing great effort, which also weirs down on offense... The result has been wins though and a Dennis each time out-classing his direct opponents one way or the other. Not that the kid sometimes doesnt give me headakes.

Only thing he crushes are chairs. Lots of chairs.

Both PG's played average on offense at best, but like the TV announcer and Nique said, it panned out relating making the game to fast for Al Jefferson(5-15). Also Kemba(5-15), Hairston(1-5) and Lin(2-8) struggled against our PG backcourt. Who made those Bobcats points anyway?

Normally Im a big fan of playing your own game to your own strengths even when things dont pan out well or resistence is higher than expected. But we added talented bigs and no longer have our glue guy, so "our game and stengths" will be different. We are surely still going for the passing game, but what we got for loosing Carroll is the ability to go big and clogg the paint our own. I think mid 3rd quarter showed enough to say, lets go big and try something else because this isnt working tonight.

^It is actually all the more admirable because of continually adapting to situations, going from the go-to-guy to the Horf/Korver plays. To sometimes starting and playing the starting 5 game.

You need to start understanding that the bench plays differently from the starters. You cant play this celebrated team-ball of last year just because you want to. You need the right personell to do so and a pre-game prep knowing who you play. Korver and Horf/Millsap are very clear examples of skill-sets we dont have coming of the bench and make life easier passing the ball because of all the tripple treath sitautions and the lights-out shooting of Korver. Look at the guys Dennis plays with generally. Dennis is just a mayor option on offense in allot of situations. It is not for nothing Bud calls ISO plays for him even when Dennis doesnt seem to go in to that mode by himself. If what you say was true, and Dennis ignores Bud this last year and a game, then he would be finished. The truth is that Bud knows about limitations and strengths. Also last nights you could see Bud calling ISO plays for Dennis. Last year when Dennis played in that 5 game winning streak as a starter against mostly elite teams, he showed he is a pass-first PG as well, but plz tell me what are the scoring options of the bench otherwise? The best world in that bench situation is drive and kicks by Dennis. But when you see Horf and Korver with Dennis you see the pick-and-roll/pop with Horf allot, or the screens for Korvers 3. Yes, it all is not like the smooth starting 5 game, but it is very much wanted by Bud and a result of dealing with rotational shifts on both sides. Im not saying I wouldnt like Dennis to be more of a floor-general at times, Im just saying he isnt because he doesnt want to or doesnt listen to Bud.

Detroit had a game-plan to out-rebound us and they have the material for it. You could see on numerous plays that they where not even trying real hard to make a smooth play on offense, often with the clock going all the way down for them, but what they did was getting all kinds of personell smartly clogging the paint like a pack of raptors ready to box out for offensive rebounders. They where able to feast on our main weakness. In those type of situations I think Bud needs to adapt, playing Millsap at the 3 and Tavaras with Splitter of the bench. Just duke it out. You need only as much running and gunning as you need. I see no need to just keep on with the program all the time.

Dennis got the Hawks back in the game first half playing a normal PG game. Surely the second half some things like 3's where forced, but thats kinda what you have to do with such a big divide on the scoring-board. Scoring wasnt the problem. The reason why we lost was the D and offense in the 3rd and also the D in the 4th where any run was flattened quickly. Baze is a benchplayer. We could have used a Morris instead. One that can also be a body in the paint for an Al or Paul leaping out. I get that Bud rather likes quick dudes on the 3, but Baze is just headless and will be that way for ever and ever. I really liked what I seen from Patterson. A big relief, because Hardaway and that younger brother from NO' PG stink. Patterson has a good head on his shoulder and is a pure SG. In an extended role he could mean allot more. Whatever touches he got where solid. Anyway, season starts are not our specialty. We need time to click. Even more so now carrol is gone and Korver still out of sync. We can really only start the ball movement when Korvers dimension is added to the game.

Again, Dennis played "the offense" of the bench he played all year. Give me one team outside maybe SA that plays the same offense when the bench comes in. And even then I wouldnt know if you'd want Dennis to play "the offense" with a string of guys who are not starters. In the situations Dennis plays in, he has to be higher usage than Teague, because the other guys he plays with simply dont play "the offense" either and as such greater reliance is on individual strenghts. Whenever Dennis was allowed to play with the starting 5 he has shown to play "the offense" more than well, but expect a different offense when you see Dennis together with Baze, Antić, Scott a Korver having a major drop-off, and a Horford suffering from the same problem as Dennis in such a situation.

Mack didnt do shit outside of garbage time and again selective stats... We've been trough this in way more depth. No use in repeating. Just chiming in so this quasi popular perception doesnt become reality trough creating a myth trough a way of repeating that perception as absolute and uncontended fact. He wasnt the worst player. A good thing was he had very low turnovers and adapted to bad matchups where people somehow only remember the first instance of this bad matchup, like Jarret Jack. He even almost won a game for us vs DC, and could have gone for another if he wasnt subbed out for some strange reason and the game was given away by coach Bud. His game had its peaks and lows. But for some strange reason coach Bud didnt cultivate the peak vs DC. Such things are important with young players. People like you tried and blame entire losses only on Dennis. I rather blame weird decisons by coach Bud. Bud is a good theoretical coach with a solid overal people-management aproach. I think though he lacks insight into what its like to be a top-level pro-athlete and how mentally fragile they are in perticular situations. Like the to much rest before the playoffs. Its one of the things that got us out of sync and I lamented that as he did on this board. Subbing Dennis in that DC game got him out of sync, as much as that dunk on Leonard and Duncan got Dennis in to sync. Dennis was overal below par, but not the worst. There where guys who didnt contribute at all, only on one end, and then there where guys who where relied upon more greatly than dennis who stunk more because of that. This +- and whatever stat thing really is becoming obnoxious. I see youtube channels with nerds and pencil necks acting like they know the game inside out because they delve into all stats. They are a tool out of many in pro sports, but you cant rely on them to explain away each and every thing.

He was not. Some stats might indicate that, while others dont. When I watched the games I've seen overal lackluster performances from the whole team with lots of room for improvement. Still, I think purely on individual performances, Antić, Bazemore and, yes Korver, took the cake from Dennis. If we want to go by these playoffs and determine everything then DMC was our flat-out multi year max money player. The thing with Teague is that you know you dont know what you are going to get from him. He seems mentally off at times, so thats an issue, and he's been around for quite a while. And btw Billups was a much better shooter who could rely on that and never took nights off.

As also a Mavs fan and Laker hater, hat Fisher guy has become to me basically what that Newman guy was to Seinfeld. I hate him so much. Everything he touches irritates.

He looks a bit more square from what I've seen in the test-game recaps, but more importantly his stats show that his 3-point shot has not been in action much. Something he said to work on. However his FG% has improved. And draws fouls like crazy. Some might say its only Euro-games, but he also improved compared to the previous off-season years, indicating he finishes better trough contact, indicating being more square. I dunno have not seen much. Also some sweet looking improved deep 2 strokes though.

I actually think this "new innovative style" with the neon colours is the new norm. I liked the throwback packman jerseys allot better. Next year those will be innovative, Im telling ya. But before Nike has to market the new colours again. So yeah, nothing innovative about it in my book.

Sorry, @DS17Fanboy, but please discuss your political opinions in the proper political forum.