Sekou-Inside Camp

[DrReality]

Camp Insider II

By Sekou K Smith | Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 02:29 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

HAWKSVILLE - It appears we’ll have to wait one more day to see the Hawks in some live scrimmage action.

They wrapped up Wednesday’s workout some five-minute drills but there was no actual scrimmaging.

“Towards the end of practice [Thursday] we’ll probably start scrimmaging,” Woodson said.

And while the Hawks’ starting five of Mike Bibby, Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams, Josh Smith and Al Horford is etched in stone, Woodson said he will be on the lookout for things he can exploit with mismatches.

“We’ll continue to approach our starting unit as it is,” Woodson said. “But there’s a chance I could tinker and look at other combinations, you just never know. I don’t think you go into a season and not look at possible changes. I’m going to whatever it takes for us to win basketball games. And if that means tinkering with the lineup or playing 10 or 11 guys against eight or nine guys, then that’s something I have to figure out as we go through the exhibition season.”

Any potential tinkering with the starting five (can’t imagine too much going on there) and the bench rotation (still has to be worked out) will make things mighty interesting going forward.

It’s clear the Hawks are looking for an edge, for some things they can exploit that perhaps went untouched last season. Woodson isn’t tipping his hand (maybe he’s trying to throw opponents off by talking as much as he has about tinkering), but he has me sufficiently intrigued as to what he might do.

MARVIN HOBBLED: Williams took a knee to the leg during a drill in Wednesday’s workout and was hobbling throughout the end of the session, but insisted that he was fine when I asked him about it as he walked to the locker room.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “It was just a play where Frank [Robinson] accidentally caught me in the leg and now it’s a little sore. But I’m fine.”

GARDNER AILING: The same can’t be said for second-year swingman Thomas Gardner, who was in practice gear but didn’t work out due to a sore calf. Woodson said Gardner has to get a MRI on the leg before anyone can determine the severity of the injury.

SHOWING LOVE TO THE FANS: There’s a whole chapter devoted to the Hawks- Celtics playoff series in a book about the Celtics’ title run last year (Top of the World, the inside story of the Boston Celtics’ amazing one-year turnaround to become NBA champions by former longtime Boston Globe NBA writer Peter May) that is an interesting read.

May describes in great detail the dramatic swings in momentum in the series and correctly points out the role the fans in both cities played in changing the complexion of home games, for both teams, throughout.

Particularly interesting to me was a quote from one of the Celtics’ owners, Wyc Grousbeck, which has to rank as the one line I never thought I’d read about Philips Arena.

“The noise in that arena was by far the loudest of any of the buildings we played in during the playoffs,” he said.

Having been there and having covered playoff games around the league the past eight years, that’s saying something for an arena and a fan base often chided for being empty and subterranean, respectively.

And when you realize the Celtics went to face Cleveland, Detroit and LA after the Hawks and Grousbeck maintains that Philips had the best noise, that tells you just how electric that atmosphere really was, especially for those of us lucky enough to be in the building.

[Too Cool #2]

Some great news. and i hope marv and gardener get healthy for the scrimmages

cant wait to hear how the bench does when they crank up the intensity a little bit