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One move that may need to happen for stretches even if Dennis plays within himself is Bazemore or Sefolosha in to guard the ball with Wall in, Hardaway Jr bringing the ball up and playing PG, and Dennis on the bench.

I didn't actually predict, but my personal thoughts, kept to myself, was a 45-37 team. I wonder how many teams have had two absolutely dreadful stretches of 3-19 combined with many massive blowout losses....ended up at 43-39 or any low winning record (42-44 wins). I'm pretty sure the majority were probably mid to low lottery teams and it's rare for a team to have two absolutely dreadful stretches of 3-19 combined...to end up with a winning record. The entire Eastern Conference took a huge step back this year. It goes to show that what Steve Smith said was right (this is not word for word). He said after that first absolutely dreadful stretch, in relation to the playoffs with the Hawks: "Bud is a very good coach. He's going to figure it out and get his team to fight. They aren't going to miss the playoffs. He might be able to get them to a playoff series win, maybe even two. Not three."

It should also be noted that Hardaway Jr's first completely good playoff game will be his first, he really struggled last year in the PO's outside of garbage time vs Boston. I think he will play very well, but that's noteworthy.

Uh yeah. If he wasn't going to do this, you'd think that Kent Bazemore would have made his return to the starting lineup already. There was hints as early as the second Pacers game that his assistants didn't buy Bazemore's importance to the starting lineup (He started, but didn't play as much as he usually did). If this isn't the case, he's off his rocker as it's not a good thing to be changing players in a lineup all of a sudden and then playing postseason games.

I suppose I should have finished my thoughts, although most was on another thread, but I don't think you can use analytics to analyze the Hawks this year. If you do, you're "technically" analyzing a 4 vs 11 seed by the analytics. Like I said, Washington actually getting a stretch 4 changed a lot of things vs the Hawks, really starting last year and it's because Millsap has a historical issue against stretch 4's. Which is wild as he's a stretch 4 himself. There isn't going to be an in between. This series is either going to end quickly in a Washington win or it's going to go to 6/7 and it's going to be anyone's. If there are no blowouts, the longer this series goes, the more the advantage will switch to the Hawks.

Not surprising, because if you look at overall point differential, the Hawks have the worst one in the eastern playoffs, likely the playoffs period. I don't have the time so I can't look up how bad, but by point differential the Hawks were like the 11th best team in the East. 538 says the Hawks have a 20% chance of winning their first round series, and this is something that goes on analytics. It's worse than series like the Pacers and Cavaliers. If you break it down overall though, guys that look at things through analytics in a decade or two are not going to understand how the Hawks went 43-39 this year. Two stretches of 3-19 combined with several massive blowout losses is going to kill your point differential.

I already said it at realgm, but backcourt vs backcourt isn't the story of this series, it's Millsap vs the Morris twin that is. If Millsap continues to forget how to play sensible basketball against a stretch 4, the Hawks are going to lose this series pretty badly. If he remembers how to play sensible basketball against a stretch 4, all bets are off and throw out what happened in the regular season.

Guess its time to post it again... If Bud is all of a sudden going to change his mind and put Bazemore and Sefolosha back in the starting lineup, he's going against what he's done this year which is different from previous years, and this is out of this world crazy. In previous years, he has sometimes had returning injured players come off the bench when they return, but it's just been for a game. This year he's done it for multiple games. I don't think Bazemore starts again at all this year. He returned earlier than Millsap did and you'd think if he was going to be starting, he would have returned to the starting lineup on Sunday when Millsap did or even earlier. Sefolosha is harder to gauge but again, with how Bud has worked this year, we probably are not going to see him in the starting lineup either. It's out of this world crazy if he does it because this team has never had good chemistry and it does not need to be spending a round one while they're the underdog trying to get back to just below average chemistry. Say hello to Bazemore and Sefolosha, bench players. I think Prince's game vs Boston just nailed it down.

I hate this start time. Odds are very good I end up missing most of this game as I will be on the road Sunday. That worked out well last year but it isn't fun for me. Maybe this is similar to 2011 in that despite an odd season, the Hawks can win as a lower seed and have a fun-ish second round series at minimum.

I get to miss at least the first half-three quarters of game 1 of the playoffs which is just lovely. I will be on the road on Sunday and while I may get to listen to some of it, I'm going to spend at least an hour, minimum in the dark on the highway. That worked out well last year, though.

Starting Sefolosha would make sense. Let him play 20 mins max, than bubble wrap him.

If that were to actually happen, I hate it for both sides. It's good it got shot down.

It may be a "tougher" team with the way it looks but this team isn't as mentally tough as last year's team was. At least, they haven't shown it yet. Miracle comebacks do not get replicated in a playoff situation. The biggest difference is after that awful Nets loss, outside of three quarters on Sunday we have seen a entirely different Hawks team show up. Different from even in the hot start months ago.

With the way Bud has worked lately, Sefolosha's not going to be back in the starting lineup for a while. That's not how he works.

You would think, especially since Bazemore was back before Millsap, that at this point, neither Bazemore nor Sefolosha will be back in the starting lineup. Definitely not Sefolosha, but this seems to be a sign that Bud is against doing a pure three guard lineup as a starting lineup again.

It was in the first half. Then the second half has two words: Garbage Time.

Two words. Garbage time.

The offense was better with him out.

The starting lineup played like they did vs Boston to start out. If it was actually a game Dennis was going to get a looooooooootttt more involved but it never became a game again. The offense played well but kicked it into another gear when Dwight left. Again.

He did not impact this game. The bench did.

Well by the numbers, not well by impact.

Playoffs update: Most of Milwaukee's starting lineup will rest, so Boston will keep #1 most likely.

That was fun! Now I hope tomorrow is used as a garbage time game and most of the key regulars sit!

Get it done today. I want to see 30+ mins of DeAndre Bembry tomorrow.

We already have the answer on the Kemba question, Charlotte's offense collapses with him off the floor this year. It'd be a more interesting story last year with Jeremy Lin around but this year, it's no question, they're a bad offense without Kemba.