Seano

I have no idea what they saw in Marvin, but whatever it is, all those scouts (and that included virtually everyone) should be taken out and publicly flogged for their foolishness. :beathorse:***this is supposed to represent a flogging, rather than a beating of a dead horse***

Well Marvin is just plain damn clumsy. There is just no other way to get around that fact. I didn't watch much of him during his one season at North Carolina, but I thought all the scouts were raving about how super athletic a player he was, and that was what added to him being such a great NBA prospect in their minds. But man, I don't understand those reviews, because Marvin looks about as unathletic an NBA small forward as can be. I mean he is klutzy as hell, he's gawky, he's clumsy, he'll dribble the ball of f his foot or leg or sometimes just lose the ball for no reason at all, he's stumbling and bumbling around out there like a clown sometimes, I mean WTF? What did those scouts see in that guy???????

I think it has to do with a combination of several things, none of which have to do with hate. I mean I'm pretty sure that none of these big media types actively hate us or wish us to lose, but they see the same things that we do, namely how maddeningly inconsistent this team can be, and how one game we might look like world-beaters, while the very next we play so poorly that it raises questions as to how much effort these players are even putting into it. And there's the fact that we were on the wrong end of so many awful blowouts this season, I believe more than any other team in the NBA, which all ties into how bloody inconsistent this team can be. So there's that, and then there's that historical and unforgettable beatdown against the Magic last season, and if you think that doesn't leave a residue in people's minds, you'd be wrong. I mean everybody knows about that and is fully aware of it, and that's some powerful imagery right there, the worst playoff stomping in the entire history of the NBA. So everyone is remembering that, which casts more doubts upon the Hawks. So these negative things all exist in people's minds, and maybe that jaundices their views of us, or maybe not, because it's not invalid or unreasonable to question or doubt a team as inconsistent as we have been, so it's like 'show me'. They need to show people they can do it, and that's the only way to prove they can and to stop their doubters. They took step one and showed a crapload of heart and guts in slaying Dwight and the Magic, and so now they need to keep on going and keep at it, and they can beat these Bulls and shut EVERYONE up. It is all on them to do so, and I believe they can. But will they? Who knows. That would be the million dollar question.

I agree. I'm not sure about Marc Gasol, because I have NO idea how much he might be getting or if he's restricted or an unrestricted FA, but I believe that getting a quality big like that is probably doable for us- and you're right about the Heat. If we were to get a stud big man along with a top-notch bench going at least 3-4 deep, we'd be able to exploit their biggest weaknesses.

Agree. I believe that Marc Gasol is a FA this summer too, though I have no idea whether he is restricted or what exactly the deal is with that. I'd fricken LOVE to get that guy though.

Heh. That made me chuckle. :) Oh well, throw the kid into the fire and see how he does. It's not like we've got a whole lot of alternatives, and Teague has at least got the quicks to offer some kind of hope of slowing down DRose. All I'm asking Larry Drew is that please, please, please for the love of god do not allow Jamal more than 10-12 minutes per game at PG, because he will get torched by Rose, and that much is guaranteed.

Ughhhhhhhhhh. :roulette:

It seemed like Al punked Noah defensively pretty well at C in the games we played this season, even in the two games where we got our butts beat by da Bulls. Al held him to 13, 0, and 8 points in the three games, and of course Twin's not going to be starting at C in this series, so I would say that Horf vs. Noah is a matchup that's positive in our favor, at least based on regular season results. If Hinrich is out for more than a game though, DRose could very well go fricken medieval on our asses. That is not a good thought, so I am hoping and praying the Captain heals quickly and is right back up to speed.

The thing of it is, I could totally see us doing that. I would not be the least bit shocked to see us blow a 3-1 lead and make NBA 'history' like that. That's how low my confidence in this damned team is, and I am fricken hoping and praying for them to prove me wrong and come out and smash those arseholes in the mouth come Thurs. night.

Not feeling too good about a game 6 at all, given the humiliating *ss-stomp we just underwent tonight. Talk about shades of last year, it was a fricken embarrassment. I had it on DVR and just ended up turning it off after the 1st quarter, because I cannot and will not sit there and watch such pathetic basketball, because all it does is put me in the foulest of moods and leaves my blood pressure elevated and stomach feeling totally sour. I cannot STAND the Orlando Magic, and to just lay down for them like that, it's disgusting, it royally pisses me off and there is absolutely no excuse to punk out like that. And now, yes- the pressure is squarely on us, and for that fool wishing for a game 6 rather than having us close it out tonight, ya got what ya wished for, and are ya happy with that?

Hmmmm. Meow, eh? Very interesting take on that situation. Fluffy has given us a lot to think about here, and I have to admit I hadn't even considered that angle before. Meow indeed, dude. Meow indeed.

A lock? No. We are up 2 games to 1, and nothing is a lock until one of us wins 4 games. Anything can happen. If anyone should know that, that would probably be Hawks fans. I'm just happy we're ahead in the series again and I am really looking forward to seeing the next step in the road coming up on Sunday night.

I couldn't tell who made first contact there. Didn't Richardson walk up and stick a finger in Zaza's chest or something, and that's what kicked the whole thing off? I don't know what the punishment and/or fines will be, but think that no matter what, they should not be equal. Richardson wasn't even involved in that play. He had nothing to do with it, but then he instigated things by walking up to Zaza and making himself a part of the issue like that, so that's all on him. The refs had blown the whistle, the play was dead, and the fight never would have happened had Richardson done what every player is supposed to do and act professionally and not instigate things. The one good thing that came out of it was that it ensured the refs were going to review the tape and catch the Howard elbow. Maybe that will put a little nuggget in their minds that maybe, just maybe they ought to be keeping an eye on those very powerful elbows after the play. It would hurt like hell to take a shot like that from someone as powerful as Dwight, that's just straight-up dirty play on Dwight's part in my opinion. If it's within the context of an ongoing play, that's one thing. But the cheap shots and muggings after the play is over have got to stop.

It would be really hard for us to get him, I think. It's pretty difficult to imagine Orlando being willing to trade him within the division, I mean the dude's a fricken perennial MVP and DPOY candidate. I sure as hell wouldn't trade him within the division if I were them. One way it might happen though is that if he were to basically force their hand, kind of like Carmelo and his people orchestrated the whole trade to the Knicks. Dwight doesn't seem that type though. Who knows? I'd give any player off this roster though to get him.

This game was tense, holy crud. I felt like I was about to have a heart attack or something going down the stretch there and at the end, especially when Jamal took that shot. That was scary, but thank god he made it.

I do believe that Zaza's head has got its own magnetic field and gravitational pull, and there are also reportedly tiny satellites and several small moons orbiting Zaza's head.

Exactly. I don't know what the deal was last night, but I felt we were way too passive on the offensive end, fell in love with the jump shot again even when it clearly wasn't working, and were not working the ball inside as we'd done so effectively in game 1. To me that should be part of the strategy on both ends of floor, and that is taking it to Dwight on both ends. I hate to keep bringing up the ORL-CHA series from last year, but to me that offered the perfect blueprint on how a team should get after Dwight in a playoff series like that. They drove the ball on Dwight on the offensive end, and physically hacked him, held him, knocked him around and roughed him up on both ends of the floor, and the result was an ineffective and highly frustrated Dwight in constant foul trouble and fouling out of two of the games. And we still allowed *way* too many uncontested dunks to Dwight. You can't do that, because that just gets him ALL fired-up and fires up all his teammates too, so fricken hack him in that circumstance and don't allow (or at least try not to) those thundering jams. I mean if you're going to utilize a hack a Dwight strategy, then don't half-*ss it, do it all the way and really fricken get after the guy on BOTH ends. It seems like LD is afraid of people fouling out or something, but so what if they foul out!?!?!? That's part of the whole strategy, and guys are going to foul out, so between Twin, Zaza, Powell and Etan, that's 24 fouls you've got to give right there, so USE THEM! AND RE: Dwight having so many foul shots, well yeah. That's not a conspiracy, because we all know the NBA protects its stars, because that is who butters their bread. The hack a Dwight strategy can work and that's been proven, but it's much easier when Dwight is shooting FT's to his career norms, which is just about at 59% for his career. However in this series (just our luck), for whatever reason he is knocking down his foul shots at a 71% clip and looks really comfortable up there, which is not normal for Dwight. Eventually he will revert to his career norms though. Let's just hope that starts immediately.

Give it up? Huh? Why should a player give up one of the better features of his game just because he's struggling for the first time with it? That would be crazy, and totally counter-productive. Even taking into account his 29% this year, he is still hitting 3's at a .366 clip for his career, which is pretty decent. It's not world beating stuff, but it's pretty good. He's only 29, so it's not like he suddenly got old and lost the ability to shoot, so I can only assume he is not physically correct or 100%, whether that's his elbow or his thumb or what, I have no idea. I just don't think he's right, and that's why he's been so off.

I would love to believe that our coaching staff and management is capable of being so devious and smart as that. That's about a Bill Belichick-ian level of coaching foresight and intelligence, anything at all in order to try and throw off and confuse the opponents, anything to gain an edge now matter how small that edge might be, and even if it's just a perception of an edge. I don't know that our 'braintrust' (HA!) is quite so smart as that, but we'll see, and like I say I would absolutely love to see us at least trying to gain an edge over a playoff opponent. We did certainly end the season gasping and wheezing, so if that was done by design in order to lull Orlando to sleep, then we sure succeeded in that, cause we sure did look like crud down the stretch.

Yikes! :) Those Youtube rejection videos were painful to watch. That's wicked humiliating for everyone involved. I agree with those saying that proposing to a girl in that kind of public setting is just too much, I mean talk about awkward and talk about putting a girl on the spot. A proposal should be as romantic, as special and as creative and/or individualized (tailored specifically to her) as you can possibly make it for your girl, and proposing to her at a sporting event is not only non-creative (because it's cliched as hell and has been done a thousand times before at this point), but it's just the opposite of romantic in my opinion, making a public spectacle before thousands of strangers out of something so personal and so intimate as that. I'd never do it, and I couldn't advise anyone else to, unless she is one hell of a Hawks fan who you know for a fact would appreciate something so public as that.

I would say a C+ is generous given by the way we've fallen off from last season. It's not just the number of wins, but the quality of wins and quality of overall play even in defeat. Last (regular) season we were much more competitive and proved that we could play with everyone. We beat virtually every contender both West and East and some of them multiple times, and we didn't get blown out of the gym hardly at all, whereas this season we have suffered a fricken lot of awful, humiliating beatdowns, losses so bad that it's made me question sometimes how much these guys are really into it, and that is not a good doubt to have in your mind.

Well for whatever it's worth Chris Webber likes us and seems to really believe in us. :) He picked one upset to take place in the West and one in the East, and his Eastern upset was that we would take out the Magic.

I agree. The Magic are ripe for the plucking, and removing Dwight from the picture, their defense is highly exploitable. And RE: Larry Drew, like Harry Truman said, the buck stops here. He's the top guy orchestrating the entire show out there on the court, so any failure in that or any failure to get his players under control and to play within his system lies squarely on him, and he will rise or fall because of that. It is totally unfair for this guy to try and preemptively place blame for Drew's failings at the feet of Josh Smith. That's just wrong. Smith's stubbornness is just a symptom of a much larger disease, and that I would say is having a coach who does not have the gravitas, the credibility or the authority (within his players minds) to get them to play as he would like them to play and get them to do the things that he would like them to do.

I agree 100% that we have to get after Dwight and try to get to him. The studio crew on the NBA Network were interviewing him last night after his game with the 76ers, and Dwight was talking about the upcoming playoffs and what he felt he needed to do in order for them to be successful, and he stated that he needed to do a better job managing his emotions and specifically against us, because he said one of the Hawks strategies this season had been to try and frustrate him as much as possible so as to get him off his game and get him into foul trouble, so that thought is already inside his head and he is very aware of it. So in my opinion we need to exploit that as much as possible, by attacking him and being as physical as possible with him. Frustrate him, piss him off, draw him into (hopefully) early foul trouble, and then we can take it from there. I hope that Twin is ready! He did a great job on Dwight earlier in the year.

Yeah I heard them say that too, which makes sense given the amount of other signings we've seen teams make with less than a week left in the season. Washington just signed a D-Leaguer, Utah, SA, Cleveland, a bunch of teams have been adding players and I wasn't really sure as to why they were doing that at this late stage of the game.