Observations

[capstone21]

Garnett is just awesome...I will say it again he is just awesome. There is no answer for that guy.

We started out well but we had a lot of trouble getting rebounds tonight.

Marvin was hot early. He went out and Lue came in and the team started playing worse.

JJ played really good defense tonight. He was his usual solid self.

Marvin is a different player this year. You can see it in the way he plays. Its like and night and day from last year. He needs to do a better job of protecting himself from those offensive fouls though.

Lue still sucks and I have no idea why Woodson left him in there so long. He got eaten alive by Eddie House of all players.

It was nice to see a good offensive showing from Horford...keep improving kid.

Smith...bonehead plays again. He needs to slow down and think. The clanking on the back off the rim should be telling him that he is not an outside shooter. The worst thing that happened was him making that first jumpshot. He started taking more after that. I am starting to question his bball IQ after shots and passes he is always trying to make. The problems with his turnovers are that they are so preventable. He just needs to slow down and not try to make the highlight film all the time.

He did have some AWESOME blocks though.

I like Law in the first quarter. He was playing like a playmaker and making some nice passes and running the offense. This was the first time this season he was really playing like a pg instead of and off guard. To bad Woody took him out in favor of Lue. I still don't get that one.

I think Law and AJ should be our pg rotation.

I was blown away by that attack of the goal by sheldon. I wish he made it. That would have been awesome.

oh and Garnett was AWESOME!

[oken]

Yeah, I agree...

we kept up while Law was running the point...

and then Woody put Lue in...and then it just went downhill from there...

Maybe it was the quality of players surrounding Lue...but still he doesn't really help the flow of the offense does he?

we took way too many bad shots with Lue in the game...

We ran more when Acie was in the game (at the beginning), and we were closer...then Woody just took out Marvin and Acie...and put in Chill and Lue...

This team is not built to win halfcourt games...

Lue is not the PG we need to run halfcourt sets...

blah...

[capstone21]

It was not the quality of players surrounding Lue...It was Lue. He should not be in there more then to just give Law a rest. He and his lack of defense should not have been in there.

[BusBoyIsBack]

Yeah when Smoove was cold today I started thinking of that 1st jump shot.

Gave him too much confidence.

This was the first game where he forced 3s instead of shooting them out of desperation with shot clock draining.

But I don't blame Smoove for pushing the ball. I blame his teammates for not running with him when he pushes it.

When they do, you get what happened with those 3 set ups for Marvin he made.

But most of the time his teammates watch him just waiting for him to screw up. He wouldn't screw up if you guys helped him out.

Tyron Lue is the anti uptempo

Actually he's the anti win

[mrhonline]

Please. Josh Smith has been inefficient in nearly every game so far, and has a monstrous amount of turnovers for a 4th-year player.

He has to step up, or the Hawks aren't making the playoffs. (My preference would be minimizing his role on offense).

At least we know he's a slow starter.

(***Crosses fingers***).

[HawksFan87]

JOE neeeds to become a LEADER of this team before we e en dream about reaching the playoffs...

[Joker]

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Garnett is just awesome...I will say it again he is just awesome. There is no answer for that guy.

nba's take: co sign

We started out well but we had a lot of trouble getting rebounds tonight.

nba's take: KG itimdated our post players, I'm not surprise, he does this to most of the NBA post players.

Marvin was hot early. He went out and Lue came in and the team started playing worse.

nba's take: Marvin was great, extremely aggressive, sometimes too aggressive, he getting better then I assume he would in the offseason, he could surpass JJ in overall talent in two years.

JJ played really good defense tonight. He was his usual solid self.

nba's take: JJ looked overmatched, simply put.

Marvin is a different player this year. You can see it in the way he plays. Its like and night and day from last year. He needs to do a better job of protecting himself from those offensive fouls though.

nba's take: see above

Lue still sucks and I have no idea why Woodson left him in there so long. He got eaten alive by Eddie House of all players.

nba's take: I disagree with your assessment of him overall, but as for this game, he wasn't good, smart teams will always beat the Hawks this season, simply put.

It was nice to see a good offensive showing from Horford...keep improving kid.

nba's take: He is good for a rookie, really good for a rookie, and footwork and IQ is above average and he only getting better.

Smith...bonehead plays again. He needs to slow down and think. The clanking on the back off the rim should be telling him that he is not an outside shooter. The worst thing that happened was him making that first jumpshot. He started taking more after that. I am starting to question his bball IQ after shots and passes he is always trying to make. The problems with his turnovers are that they are so preventable. He just needs to slow down and not try to make the highlight film all the time.

nba's take: I don't know what to say, told you so is a start but it will seem like I'm hating. I just don't think this guy can help a playoff team and never seen it, SAR reinvented.

He did have some AWESOME blocks though.

I like Law in the first quarter. He was playing like a playmaker and making some nice passes and running the offense. This was the first time this season he was really playing like a pg instead of and off guard. To bad Woody took him out in favor of Lue. I still don't get that one.

nba's take: Good for a rookie, he really lacks pace, not a surprise though, not too good vs. smart playoff level teams, but what rookie is.

I think Law and AJ should be our pg rotation.

I was blown away by that attack of the goal by sheldon. I wish he made it. That would have been awesome.

oh and Garnett was AWESOME!

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KG and crew is great, I don't know why people were acting like they were Orlando in early pre game threads, well that's my take.

[Sasquatch]

Quote:

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Please. Josh Smith has been inefficient in nearly every game so far, and has a monstrous amount of turnovers for a 4th-year player.

He has to step up, or the Hawks aren't making the playoffs. (My preference would be minimizing his role on offense).

At least we know he's a slow starter.

(***Crosses fingers***).

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He just is not smart. He is literally shooting himself out of a "big money" contract. All he has to do is take quality shots with a decent fg% and avg. Nooooo! That makes too much sense.

How many power forwards get big time deals with 36% from the field?

The way he cries to refs, it's like everything is about him not the team.

[exodus]

Childress was back to being garbage again. Childress and Smith combined for 6 field goals and 7 turnovers.

Bottom line is that Marvin and Acie need to be the second and 3rd options after JJ on offense. They need to start shooting.

Smith should be benched if he takes more than 10 shots a game.

[BusBoyIsBack]

Quote:

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Please. Josh Smith has been inefficient in nearly every game so far, and has a monstrous amount of turnovers for a 4th-year player.

He has to step up, or the Hawks aren't making the playoffs. (My preference would be minimizing his role on offense).

At least we know he's a slow starter.

(***Crosses fingers***).

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Smoove was not nearly as problematic as Lue and Woodson.

What hurts this team more than anything is the tempo that Lue sets walking the ball up the court and dribbling out the shot clock

[Peoriabird]

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Smith should be benched if he takes more than 10 shots a game.

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Smith looks the same to me. He has always looked this awkward on offense and when it was pointed out in pre-season games this year people rushed to his defense. It's just pre-season and It doesn't count! Well we now know that josh Smith is what he is...A player with a lot of limitations on offense. But here is the problem, no one has told Josh Smith this! The Hawks could certainly win a lot of games with Smith not being one of the focal points in the offense. He is just that valuable on defense period! You say the Hawks don't have an offensive system because of Woody, well I say its because of the undisciplined nature of Josh Smith!

[TheDude]

Actually I think that what hurt us the most is that we played the Boston Celtics. That is a very good team. I said in another thread that I fully expected to lose this game. I watched a couple of their other games and they were fully dominant. They may not be deep but they don't have to be. Their big 3 don't have to expend as much energy as they have in the past due to them being the only option then.

Just think, the Celtics could feasibly get away with never having more than one superstar off the floor at a time if they didnt want to.

Not to mention they were actually worried about playing us so they didnt play down AND their main guy (Garnett) is a player that never plays down. Garnett had some ridiculous amount of rebounds in the 1st quarter. I expect this team to be in the Finals. I see noone in the Eastern Conference that can beat them in 7 games IF they are healthy.

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With that said, here are some things that I thought SPECIFICALLY killed us in that game

Rebounding. Many times there was only one man in rebouding position (Garnett) and nobody within 4-5 feet of him.

Times where the offense didnt move. Wasnt just Lue with the ball, the rest of the team at times would just stand there. Sometimes you could see that they would recognize that and then all of a sudden a few of them would start moving. Glad to see they recognize it sometimes, but not all the time.

We crumbled at times. We got down on ourselves AT TIMES and didnt play with full attacking mayhem, and that's how this team needs to play.

Turnovers hurt us again, but maybe not as bad as in other games.

I wasnt sure why Horford ended up blocking Garnett and Smith blocking Perkins so much. It should have been reversed. Unlesss they were worried about Garnett getting Smith in foul trouble. But you cant worry about that until he has a couple fouls.

We are still searching for offensive chemistry, the same chemistry i see other teams have. Smoothness is what i want to see. Right now it seems our team is still feeling themselves out to see where they fit.

Law needs to get as much burn as possible. Lue can make some shots but Law is more effective and the more burn, the more experience, therefore the better he becomes better quicker. If we need some outside shooting or if Law is tired, put Lue in. Salim still needs to get minutes. He missed some shots i beleive last night but he's vital to us to be instant offense.

I think Smith will be fine. He has always been a slow starter as he tries to get a rythym and test his new abilities (from offseason training) to see what he can and can't do. The only thing I worry about Smith beleive it or not, is actually on his drives. Some of the drives he makes don't look very smooth and look many times like luck shots. He does better with those than 3's and i agree that is what he needs to stick with as well, but seems many of his layups are luck. Hopefully they are just ugly and not luck.

As far as his turnovers are concerned, Josh has always been a guard-TYPE player in high school and what not. Shooting and driving and dunking. It's going to take him awhile, now that he knows his primary position, to get become a post guy and not a guard guy playing in the post. I know this is his 4th year but really this is his 2nd year as fulltime, definite positioned at the 4.

[yardbird]

Anyone else notice that when Acie is looking for the ball early in the half court set to try to run the offense, other players (esp. Smoove) hold the ball, give him the rookie look-off, keep the ball and we end up looking undisciplined?

It probably takes some time to earn respect, but it reminds me of the run in last year between AJ and Smoove. The PG has to demand the ball and his teammates must defer to his judgment before Acie can be the player this team needs. He'll make a few mistakes as he learns the NBA, but the team will truly arrive a lot quicker once Smoove understands that he'll get much better looks and be more effective by deferring to Acie while he settles into a leadership role.

[Peoriabird]

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Anyone else notice that when Acie is looking for the ball early in the half court set to try to run the offense, other players (esp. Smoove) hold the ball, give him the rookie look-off, keep the ball and we end up looking undisciplined?

It probably takes some time to earn respect, but it reminds me of the run in last year between AJ and Smoove. The PG has to demand the ball and his teammates must defer to his judgment before Acie can be the player this team needs. He'll make a few mistakes as he learns the NBA, but the team will truly arrive a lot quicker once Smoove understands that he'll get much better looks and be more effective by deferring to Acie while he settles into a leadership role.

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Excellent point! That in a nutshell is the problem for us on offense! Great post!