Pondering the fourth quarter and a three-game slide

[Hawksquawk]

Greetings, all-

Hope you are well. Four things for you to hopefully ruminate over.

1. After I finished the story I wrote for Sunday’s paper about the Hawks’ fourth-quarter woes, It occurred to me, perhaps some of you have already noted this, that the Hawks haven’t won a close game since beating Dallas, Dec. 5, 13 games ago. After that, they either won by blowout (seven games) or lost close (four games) or lost to Denver by 20 (a game that could have been close, but it wasn’t going to happen).

Perhaps the multiple blowouts cost the Hawks some of their late-game sharpness?

2. The Boston Globe checked in with the Hawks, which had one interesting nugget. Citing an NBA source, the story said Joe Johnson approached the Hawks about an extension last summer, “but was told that since his salary cap number is higher than his actual salary, he would be best served to wait until unrestricted free agency and re-sign.”

As best I understand it, if that were true, it’s kind of a different …

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