thesheedera

Just playing Devil's advocate here, but the argument that he shoots a bad % while being a bad team's first option can actually work against you. He's their ONLY option, and therefore he's the one guy the other team needs to stop. Yet he still scores in volume.

And his "low percentage" ain't that terrible for a shooting guard. Compare him to our boy JJ who's shooting .001 lower while taking .448 shots/minute. By way of comparison, Durant shoots .491/minute. JJ has more options available to him, yet he shoots almost as much. If Durant's a low percentage chucker, what's Johnson?

I love Horford, but Durant probably deserves the ROY when it's all said and done.

Well it's a heck of a tv program, so don't beat yourself up too much.

I bet bumpyphish was pickin up what you were puttin down.

Maybe we should be worried if it was so obvious to us and not everyone else.

I read that this morning as well in the AJC. Makes you wonder what the heck Smith is thinking on the the other nights...

As always this is extremely unfair to take a second hand quote out of context and use it to form a position on what's going through a guy's head.

He must have been way too laser focused on the task at hand after all those bumps.

Yeah I know, i didn't mean to come off like starting him was such a bad idea. What i meant was that we need a shooter. The fact that he is a big isn't a problem to me. I was basically agreeing with this..

Smith could play some 3 while Andersen is in the game.

Exactly my thought. We don't want Smith feeling like he needs to shoot jumpshots, but he can be an awesome "small" forward when paired with a 4 or 5 who can shoot and stretch the defense.

no reason whatsoever for JJ and Smith to be in this game

and there we go - right on command

now we need to throw in mario, salim, solo, etc.

no reason whatsoever for JJ and Smith to be in this game

I won't claim that the chemistry issue is fixed for good, but tonight it looks the way it should look. It's amazing how easy it can look when this group shares and moves the ball.

I'm not really celebrating anything, but if I were, it would be because I'm a Hawks fan and we just won our 3rd game in a row in the midst of our first playoff race in almost a decade.

I have to agree with this. The idea behind this thread has a lot of merit throughout the season, but now we're in crunch time and this is what you should ahve been saving your legs for throughout the year.

The Hawks aren't looking at a long postseason. Just getting into the playoffs is our equivalent of a postseason. Unless we have a big lead we need our best players on the floor as much as possible.

I kind of like it when this place is a ghost town during and after Marvin's best games. Kind of like the silent stadium when the road team puts away the home team.

Totally disagree. Taking bad shots is far worse than taking no shots.

I think Salim's capable of being a really good player and early this season he looked like he was willing to change his game to become one, but far too often he reverts back to the chuck first ask questions later mentality,

Much better shot selection.

And it was taken over an athletic and tough defender in David Lee. It needs to get more play in the rotation.

You must have awfully low expectations for a #6 pick in the draft if you think Childress is a guy who "does better than he's supposed to do".

It's just ironic to me that with Marvin it's "content with accepting his role" while with Childress he's somehow bringing incredible intangibles that don't show up in the numbers. Childress was an EXTREMELY high draft pick. Not as high as #2, but are #6 draft picks just supposed to be scrappy guys coming off the bench?

They've both been disappointments, face it. The question is, do either of them offer the potential to become much better than they are now?

Marvin must have played alright. Barely a mention and it wasn't even legitimate hate.

My biggest issue with Marvin has always been not crashing the boards. Was he getting up and going after them to get 11, or were they mostly just bouncing right to him?

Pretty big win, as ugly as it may have looked.

Huge Marvin fan here, with mixed emotions about this season. Had he kept up his play from early in the season I wouldn't have any doubts about him at all.

Now I have doubts. I still have faith in him, but not as much as I did in late December. He was blooming then, but seems so wildly inconsistent now that something looks wrong to me.

Could be his own attitude/dedication.

Could be his relationship with teammates or coach.

Could be injuries.

Probably some combination of all of that. But something is definitely worth concern.

I think bringing him off the bench would be fine. I think trading him would be fine, but I'd still rather trade Childress. I think he still ends up as a borderline all star one day, I just don't have much confidence it will be as a hawk.

I don't know if the Bibby trade will make us better in the long run, but that was the reason for the trade - long run, not for just this season.

It may have been better to have agreed on the deal and wait until the end of the season to execute it, but in reality you have to strike when the iron's hot and make a deal when you can. The Hawks' situation is different from the Suns' because the Suns are playing for a championship. We're still "under construction".

Disrupting our average to below average success to make the Bibby trade may have made us worse for this season in an effort to make us better in the future. But we're still about where we were before the trade - losing more than winning while sitting in the middle of the pack in a terrible conference.

The Suns may have disrupted a championship run in getting Shaq, and on top of that he's a guy that doesn't have much mileage left. They needed to be great immediately after getting Shaq. That deal's looking like an all time bust so far.

I didn't get to watch the game. I see the boxscore and notice a few things that alarmed me:

Horford went to bed well rested with 3 fouls to give after 18 minutes played. He only shot 40% but that's better than the collective ofer from Zaza and Solomon.

Marvin also went to bed well rested only playing 28 minutes, and took 2 fouls to give with him. According to the boxscore (I know how flawed that can be) he was having a solid night nearing a double double and shooting 50%.

Childress only got 22 minutes.

Acie didn't see the floor, wasn't he supposed to be ready last weekend?

Meanwhile, JJ logged 46 FREAKING MINUTES!!!! Smith played 41 (well, his body can probably handle it), and Bibby's crippled ass got 35.

Other than the obvious "Woody sucks", what gives?

If we can win more than 36 and finish with some nice momentum, I think I really will get excited and I'll be completely "on board". I'll probably spring for playoff tickets hoping to see a win or maybe even two.

The more likely "best case" scenario: we finish the rest of the season playing just above .500 ball, taking 10 of the next 19. Sadly, we'd only have a 36-46 record, but we'd still likely breeze into the playoffs because our conference is close to an all time low after the top few teams. I'd consider buying playoff tickets but will really hope to find some for free.

If we win 34-36 games we'd be playing just a little better than our record thus far and it should be enough to get the 8th spot. I wouldn't be terribly excited about the playoffs, maybe not enough to spend my own money on anything other than the cheap seats. I'd be expecting a complete disaster first round and part of me would be just fine with that if it expunged BK/Woody.

If we make the playoffs with 33 wins or less I'll be disgusted.

You're reaching, big time. Calling for a faster pace doesn't equate to calling for the fastest pace possible. The Suns and Warriors are extremes.

I'm pretty sure he and BK have expiring contracts at the end of this season. My guess is that the ownership has been thinking that Woody's good enough to get us a playoff berth this season, whch they will trumpet as some kind of arrival, some kind of great achievement.

BK and Woody are lame ducks in their mind, so while there's no great reason to keep Woody around, if they fire him while BK's still in charge, then BK (a lame duck GM) gets to decide who the next coach is, which they certainly don't want. If BK hires someone that they don't want long term, they'll have to buy them out when the new GM decides who he wants as HC.

I think they were just gambling that we'd be "good enough" with Woody for the rest of the year, so they could make their moves this summer and not have to buy anyone out of any existing contracts.

And honestly, I don't think that was such a terrible idea if it's the case. Sucks for us Hawks fans, but if it were my dough, I'd probably be thinking along the same lines.

Now that the firing attempts are public and the team's in a tailspin, it makes them look worse, but the theory made sense when it was probably developed earlier this year.

I don't know we were close...

Then Marvin comes in at the 10 minute mark in the 4th and Charlotte goes on a bigtime run!

10:03 - We're down 83-72

Zaza gets the ball in the paint (takes a dribble in traffic - wtf?) pumps twice and gets fouled. We're down 83-74.

10:02 - Marvin comes in before Zaza's foul shot, Zaza makes it, we're down 83-75.

Next possession: Felton brings it down, milks the clock, Marvin's on Carroll in the corner near the Bobcats bench, we're plying man to man. Okafor sets a high pick for Felton (on JJ) and Felton drives to the side of the court opposite of the Cats bench while Carroll swings around the perimeter to the wing near the Cats bench pulling Marvin with him.

Felton pulls out and Okafor sets another screen near the elbow, Zaza bits on the roll, Bibby's closest to Felton and doesn't help, JJ can't get to him in time, Felton drains a 3 with the shot clock down to 5. Marvin's man never got the ball nor was he close enough to the ball to allow Marvin to help.

9:38 - 86-75

Next possession: Bibby to Marvin to JJ to Josh or an easy bucket that hits the net with 10 left on the clock. God stuff.

9:21 - 86-77

Next possession: Carroll's again in the corner near the Cats bench, Felton takes his time on the wing near the Cats bench, Okafor goes to set a screen on JJ, JS is at the elbow opposite the Cats bench with Dudley out on that wing behind the 3 point line. Josh leans towards the screening action focused on what Felton's gonna do, Felton drives toward Josh as Okafor rolls to the block, Felton passes to Dudley for an open 3. Josh doesn't even extend his arm. Marvin's man never got the ball nor was he close enough to the ball at any point to allow Marvin to help.

9:06 - 89-77

Next possession: Classic Hawks ball - JJ does some fancy dribbling on the wing near the Hawks bench as the shot clock runs, Zaza attempts a couple moving screens, JJ dribbles into Okafor. Meanwhile Marvin's in the corner near the Hawks bench waiting for a kickout (with Feton on him - isn't that a matchup that we'd want to exploit?), Bibby's on the opposite wing looking for a kickout, JS's on the opposite block waiting for a drive and dish or a missed shot. JJ passes to Bibby who takes a 3 with Boykins hand in his face, the ball comes back towards Bibby/Boykins, over Zaza's late hand right into Boykins hands. He catches and sprints in one motion with everyone behond him but Bibby, and takes Bibby to the rack. Marvin and JS trail back but couldn't catch up with Boykins.

8:42 - 91-77

We call a TO at 8:34 to reset.

So the "run" you describe is a HUGE 3 point swing, during which the only time Marvin touched the ball something good happened, and during which all of the Cats points could be blamed on every guy on the floor other than Zaza and Marvin.

So....what was you point?

Now, Marvin's done plenty lately worthy of criticism, and I'm fine with that. I just can't stand reading posts blaming everything on Marvin when the rest of the team deserves at least their share of the blame.