Our identity... Are we like the Pistons?

[lunar]

i was the main on realgm saying that we were going to be the pistons but everyone was on that whole "we need to be the suns of the east crap" the way i see it, defensive teams have won what the last 4 championships? even more if you look at the lakers,bulls, rockets, and pistons who were ridiculous defensive ballclubs in their own right (jordan's the only man i know of to score 50 while holding his own man to 20 or less.)

woodson was right in holding these kids back. josh smith didn't know a lick of D when he first got into the league and he was fouling out like crazy. now look at him. during the indiana game, murphy did a pump fake and josh smith went straight up but not into him. then he had the sense to hold his swiping motion back until murphy decided to try to put the ball up. he ended up blocking the ball on the way down. those along with childress, AJ, and even sheldon's plays demoralized the pacers. they knew they didn't have the effort to come back into the game and right when they thought they had a plan to stop us, (the play where tinsley threw it to murphy for the three cuz sheldon was cheating) woodson called timeout, grilled sheldon and he comes back and makes the stop and forces tinsley into throwing the ball away. it those types of games that get us into the playoffs. we just gotta keep working. DEFENSE AND REBOUNDING!!!

[BusBoyIsBack]

We are a team with 5 guys who can defend, run the floor, and score.

I think Detroit is like that right now

We just need to get more production from our bench like they do

[coachx]

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I agree. Joe Johnson is a great player, but he will never be recognized by the media as a great player because he isn't a selfish self promoter like some of the guys the media has latched onto as superstars.

Joe Johnson is a better basketball player than Carmelo Anthony, but you will never hear the media mention it because Carmelo is a self promoter. On the court though, Carmelo is a shot chucker that doesn't play defense.

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Alot of it has to do with the how much hype you had coming into the league.

Carmelo won an NCAA Championship as freshman while being the national player of the year. Plus he hd te Lebon connection.

I do agree with you that JJ is a better all around player NOW then Carmelo but I am throwing in another important variable.

Had JJ won player of the year and a National Championship at Arkansas in hisfrshmn season like Melo did and not taken 3 seasons to develop into a bonafide NBA player he too would have had hype fom day 1. .

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Horford doesn't get much fan fare either and he won Back to back titles. Maybe if he has floppy hair like Noah, he'd be more popular.

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I knew some one would say that.

There is a HUGE difference in the Syracuse teams and the Florida teams.

That Syracuse team had one star....Carmelo and a another good player in Warrick with an adequate PG who was not NBA material (McNamar).

The UF team has 5 guys who went straight to the NBA in the same season....3 of which taken in the top who could be considered stars but none of which carried their team single handidly like Melo did in colege. Noah, Horford , and Brewer all had to share in the spotlight. Horford had alot of other good players to share the spot light with while Carmelo had all the spot light on him.

Not to mention Carmelo was the MAN as a freshman and won the title. Not many freshman have done that as the best player on their team while also being the best player in college basketball at that time.

(Disclaimer: Marvin won a championship as a freshman too but was a 6th man...not the guy that carried his tream night in and noight out like Carmelo.)

[Plainview1981]

You got to be like SA, Dallas, and Detroit. The link is that these three teams can beat you in different ways. They can beat you in a high scoring game or a grind it out low scoring game. Dallas isn't a good at doing that as they were the last two years though.

[exodus]

a more recent Pacer's team.

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O'NEAL IMPRESSED: Pacers All-Star power forward Jermaine O'Neal likes what he sees in the Hawks' collection of talented, young big men. He said that Josh Smith, Al Horford, Marvin Williams, Shelden Williams, Zaza Pachulia and Solomon Jones remind him of the group (headlined by O'Neal and including Ron Artest, Brad Miller, Al Harrington, Jeff Foster and Jonathan Bender) the Pacers rode to the top of the Eastern Conference early this decade, including a league-best 61-21 record during the 2003-04 season. "You have to start with a nucleus, and [the Hawks] have that," O'Neal said. "They've got the foundation set. Now they just have to figure out a way to keep it all together and watch it grow."

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http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/ha...ksnot_1227.html