Nobody Should Be Surprised

Lascar78 · January 5, 2008

Nobody should be surprised with our hideous performance last night. Our team gets its identity from its coach, and that coach is clueless. The good thing is that overall throughout all the losing he has kept the team motivated and hustling, never feeling sorry for themselves and never giving up. On the other hand, his whole MO is for us to play hard on defense, and the offense will take care of itself. And that's exactly what it looks like out there. We have nothing that even resembles an organized offense.

We hope to win games by having more hustle, talent, and effort than the other team. And a lot of times, it actually is enough because we have a lot of talent here and we REALLY want to make the postseason after all those years. A lot of times we grind our way back into a game when another team thought they already had the win. But when it's not enough, we have no plan B. When we play a smart team, they slice us up.

Even when we were winning games, I didn't think we looked that great. We just play so dumb. And not just on offense. The other day we played zone against the Cavs for way too long and let them light us up. Against the Pacers we doubled JO over and over even when the rest of the team was on fire, shooting over 50% from behind the arc.

But the real problem is the offense. Problem #1 is that I don't recall us setting a screen away from the ball in the entire Woodson era. I mean seriously. JJ should be starting near the baseline, running behind a screen or two, and catching the ball for an open shot. That should be a big part of our offense. I think that as he starts to light teams up they would have to respond with the player defending the screener popping out to guard JJ. At that point the player setting the screen (Horford, Smith...) can roll to the basket and the PG can hit him instead of JJ if he's open. This is not complicated. It's basketball 101 and we never even attempt it.

Hell we can start easier than that with a simple pick and roll, which we hardly ever do. The only 2 guys we have who know how to set a screen are Lorenzen and Shelden (Horford is learning to not move), and we don't know how to run (or defend) the pick and roll at all. For starters teach all our guys how to set a pick. Has Smith ever set one?

Smith should also be taking picks (or just cutting hard on his own) when he doesn't have the ball to get easy alley oops like Kenyon Martin did all the time a year or 2 ago in Denver.

They should find ways to benefit from Childress's hard cuts along the baseline, as he never gets rewarded with the ball other than on putbacks.

The coach should determine where and how the players should play, not let them do whatever they want. Smith should be put in the post to develop more post moves. We have FINALLY seen him start to go to this recently and get many easy points (he was abusing murphy last night). He should have been put in the post 2 years ago for him to learn how to get it done against NBA competition. Marvin should be pushed to doing more than just hitting open shots or going 1 on 1. Set some picks for him when he has the ball as he has a deadly J and can attack the rim. Make the defenders pick their poison.

Instead of any of this what is our offense? Screw around for the first 12 seconds so we really only have 12 seconds to get it done. Make a couple of passes and or dribbles around the perimeter outside the 3 point line, maybe pass it inside. If the guy inside doesn't like his look, pass it back out. Whoever happens to have the ball with 3-4 seconds left has to shoot a jumper or attack the rim. It's a total joke, and we don't have the PG who can make this a decent offense in spite of Woodson.

And this is not even bringing up his substitution patterns, taking out hot guys for cold ones, not calling appropriate timeouts, etc...

We have the talent to be a middle of the pack playoff team in the East THIS YEAR. But it's not going to happen with our offense in this shape. We might be able to grind our way into the playoffs, and then a legit coaching staff will come up with a good strategy to destroy us. The San Antonio's and Detroit's don't win just because of their defense. They have great defense and an incredibly efficient offense.

If Woodson is going to completely ignore the offense, hire an offensive coordinator like NFL teams do, and let him do it. This is ridiculous.

Warning: Discussion of our W-L record relative to Woody's performance is forbidden

exodus · January 5, 2008

We both know that Woody won't be fired during the season.

The reality is that for the Hawks to have a winning record this season Acie has to step up. AJ can have some big games here and there but we can't count on him blowing up consistently. And he doesn't have the speed to break down the defenses like Acie can.

Just for one game i would like to see Acie look to score first and not worry so much about setting up everyone else. We need him to be a legit scorer because that will open up opportunities for other players.

January 5, 2008

I agree, our Defense isn't the problem at all. We lack offensive efficiency and sometimes we also lack rebounding. I have watched all but maybe 4 games this year and only a few times I thought we broke down defensively. Our most consistent offense is a JJ step-back midrange shot and a fastbreak, Woodson's disregard for an offensive scheme makes it aggrevating to watch when we slow the game down.

TheNorthCydeRises · January 5, 2008

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I agree, our Defense isn't the problem at all. We lack offensive efficiency and sometimes we also lack rebounding. I have watched all but maybe 4 games this year and only a few times I thought we broke down defensively.

Defense was definitely the problem last night.

Believe it or not, because of the efforts of Chill and Smoove, we had a 37 - 36 lead late in that 2nd quarter. Then Rush and Dunleavy started to rain the 3s, and Indy outscored us 18 - 6 to close the quarter. Until that point, we had played fairly well defensively, even with us struggling offensvely.

Then we come out in the 2nd half, and give up 4 lay-ups.

People can say all they want about the offense, but this team can't have defensive lapses like that. If you add the 18 points of the last 4 - 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter, and the ridiculous 33 points they scored in the 3rd, we gave up a whopping 51 points in about 16 minutes of playing time. Ish like that just can't happen. Normally, we'd only give up 30 - 35 points in a 16 minute stretch.

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Our most consistent offense is a JJ step-back midrange shot and a fastbreak, Woodson's disregard for an offensive scheme makes it aggrevating to watch when we slow the game down.

Most really good offensive teams either have a good PG running the show, or a good low post scoring option to throw the ball to on the blocks. We have neither right now. Because of that, we wll continue to be erratic on the offensive end. That's why this team has to commit to winning games on the defensive end every night. If we'd played decent defense last night, we could've won a game played in the 80 - 85 point range.

pound4pound · January 5, 2008

This is the post of the year!!

Woody is the problem, personnel comes a distant second.

Just look at the difference in Indiana last year to this - Jimmy O'Brian. Indiana has the same unathletic stiffs they had last year but now they are utilized to the best of their abilities (shooting behind the arc.)

We have an undersized, deep, young athletic team that can't shoot very well. We have one all-star that can do many things on the court - except drive past his man so what offense do we devise?

Slow down, ball control offense that has JJ one on one with the other teams best defender on him at best, doubled at worst leaving our athletic team standing around waiting for a jump shot.

Even if we ran that lame offense with Marvin clearing out we would be so much better off becuase he can get by his man, get fouled, or Joe would get the open looks when he was doubled.

We need to have a motion offense, running Joe off of screens with either Marvin or Chills as the primary ball handler once we bring it up court. Horford and Josh would have so many opportunites to attack the rim on back door cuts they would be on ESPN every night.

TheNorthCydeRises · January 5, 2008

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Nobody should be surprised with our hideous performance last night. Our team gets its identity from its coach, and that coach is clueless. The good thing is that overall throughout all the losing he has kept the team motivated and hustling, never feeling sorry for themselves and never giving up.

On the other hand, his whole MO is for us to play hard on defense, and the offense will take care of itself. And that's exactly what it looks like out there.

We have nothing that even resembles an organized offense.

Woody is nowhere near a championship caliber coach, but that is championship philosophy he pounds into the heads of these young Hawks. Every single coach that has won a title in the last 20 years, has won it off of the strength of their defense. A team like Phoenix, no matter how exciting or how well they play offensively, will never get past a team like the Spurs, if they don't play defense.

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We hope to win games by having more hustle, talent, and effort than the other team. And a lot of times, it actually is enough because we have a lot of talent here and we REALLY want to make the postseason after all those years. A lot of times we grind our way back into a game when another team thought they already had the win.

Once again, that's a quality that championship caliber teams exhibit.

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But when it's not enough, we have no plan B. When we play a smart team, they slice us up.

No disagreement there. A lot of the games we've lost, has also been because the other team has out-hustled us and given more effort than we did. Last night was a case of that.

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Even when we were winning games, I didn't think we looked that great. We just play so dumb. And not just on offense. The other day we played zone against the Cavs for way too long and let them light us up. Against the Pacers we doubled JO over and over even when the rest of the team was on fire, shooting over 50% from behind the arc.

We're an athletic, but undersized team on the frontline. A lot of the stuff we do on defense, is to protect Al and Smoove from getting into foul trouble. In the times that JO did get to go one on one, he ended up getting lay-ups. They hit 13 threes though. When we stopped leaving Dunleavy and Rush, Granger killed us. Those 2 quick fouls on Horford last night really hampered us and may have kept us from getting a nice lead early, instead of constantly playing from behind. The Cleveland game was just a superstar taking over a game.

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But the real problem is the offense. Problem #1 is that I don't recall us setting a screen away from the ball in the entire Woodson era. I mean seriously. JJ should be starting near the baseline, running behind a screen or two, and catching the ball for an open shot. That should be a big part of our offense. I think that as he starts to light teams up they would have to respond with the player defending the screener popping out to guard JJ. At that point the player setting the screen (Horford, Smith...) can roll to the basket and the PG can hit him instead of JJ if he's open. This is not complicated. It's basketball 101 and we never even attempt it.

This is why I record and watch games maybe 2 - 3 times. If you do that, you'll see what they try to do on offense. The offense definitely isn't pretty, but they do run offense. But once there is 10 seconds left on the clock, the ball almost always goes to JJ, and it is up to him to make a play.

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Hell we can start easier than that with a simple pick and roll, which we hardly ever do. The only 2 guys we have who know how to set a screen are Lorenzen and Shelden (Horford is learning to not move), and we don't know how to run (or defend) the pick and roll at all. For starters teach all our guys how to set a pick. Has Smith ever set one?

Smith should also be taking picks (or just cutting hard on his own) when he doesn't have the ball to get easy alley oops like Kenyon Martin did all the time a year or 2 ago in Denver.

They should find ways to benefit from Childress's hard cuts along the baseline, as he never gets rewarded with the ball other than on putbacks.

The coach should determine where and how the players should play, not let them do whatever they want. Smith should be put in the post to develop more post moves. We have FINALLY seen him start to go to this recently and get many easy points (he was abusing murphy last night). He should have been put in the post 2 years ago for him to learn how to get it done against NBA competition. Marvin should be pushed to doing more than just hitting open shots or going 1 on 1. Set some picks for him when he has the ball as he has a deadly J and can attack the rim. Make the defenders pick their poison.

Instead of any of this what is our offense? Screw around for the first 12 seconds so we really only have 12 seconds to get it done. Make a couple of passes and or dribbles around the perimeter outside the 3 point line, maybe pass it inside. If the guy inside doesn't like his look, pass it back out. Whoever happens to have the ball with 3-4 seconds left has to shoot a jumper or attack the rim. It's a total joke,

and we don't have the PG who can make this a decent offense

in spite of Woodson.

Your hatred for the coach blinds you from the obvious answer you just stated. You say that a PG would make the offense run in spite of Woody, when is that very lack of a PG that is the reason why the offense isn't fluent.

The Lakers are a much better team with Fisher and Farmar running things, than Smush Parker running the point. A PG is supposed to make the game easier for shooters and bigs. There's not a single good team, that either doesn't have a good PG, or a good playmaking SG/SF making plays for others That's why it's important for JJ to at least be the playmaker in this offense, even when his shot isn't falling. There's a direct correlation between JJ scoring and creatng a total of at least 30 - 35 points, and the Hawks winning. When that number is in the 20s, we almost always lose.

While I think we can make the playoffs even without a PG, because JJ is usually a good enough combination scorer and playmaker to get things done, the offense won't flow fluently until Acie establishes himself as the point guard, and actively looks to control the flow of the game. Then, you can have Acie running things, plus JJ doing his thing. When that happens, those bad offensive mid 80s games will turn into decent offensive mid 90s games, with this team also routney scoring over 100 points.

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And this is not even bringing up his substitution patterns, taking out hot guys for cold ones, not calling appropriate timeouts, etc...

We have the talent to be a middle of the pack playoff team in the East THIS YEAR. But it's not going to happen with our offense in this shape. We might be able to grind our way into the playoffs, and then a legit coaching staff will come up with a good strategy to destroy us. The San Antonio's and Detroit's don't win just because of their defense. They have great defense and an incredibly efficient offense.

If Woodson is going to completely ignore the offense, hire an offensive coordinator like NFL teams do, and let him do it. This is ridiculous.

San Antonio, Detroit, Boston, and now even the Lakers, make a total commitment to defense. Their defense creates a lot of offense, and limits the scoring chances of their opponents. They worry about defense first, and offense 2nd.

This offense is going to look good against teams that play bad defense. Aganinst good defensive teams, you really need a PG that can take care of the ball, and make plays for himself and others.

I told people during out win streak and AJs good December, that AJ was Jon Kitna. He's a good leader and knowledgeable vet. He'll even win a few games for you. But he just doesn't have the skill and talent to keep a team at that next level.

Woody was commited to hand over the reigns of the team to Acie back in November. Then Acie goes down. The one move that Woody could possibly make to help the offense and the team, is to start the guy that has the sill and talent, but lacks experence. And that's Acie.

TexasPete · January 5, 2008