Hawks vs Heat

[exodus]

The Heat are without JO and have been playing like crap lately yet they have a 14 pt lead in the 1st quarter. ugh

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Marvin will save us . . . lol.

Great start so far.

[Atlantaholic]

Once upon a time tha Hawks didn't suck... Those were the days.

[Admin]

Well looking for the silver lining I doubt that we'll be able to blow a big lead tonight.

[HAWKSFAN89]

I say we trade Joe now.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

LOL . . and I promise that I won't even try to talk people off the edge of the cliff tonight thru Wednesday. I'll let them FIRE WOODY, trade JJ and Marvin, dog Horford and Smooove, cuss at Crawford, and talk about how Teague should start.

The other silver lining is that Teague will get to play the entire 4th qtr tonight. Maybe hell get 13 pts and 6 assts.

[HAWKSFAN89]

Trade JJ and Marv sounds nice. Lets uhhh.... trade em away to the Blazers for B Roy and Alderidge...yehhhhhh

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I wanna trade Smoove for Zach Randolph and JJ for Shane Battier.

LOL @ Crawford, trying to prevent the blowout with his ability to draw fouls off his jumper. His ability to draw fouls off of extremely long jumpers is almost amazing.

We need to cut this to at least 7 by the end of the quarter, to have a shot at the end.

I predict a 29 - 17 3rd quarter in our favor to cut the lead to 5.

[AHF]

The other silver lining is that Teague will get to play the entire 4th qtr tonight. Maybe hell get 13 pts and 6 assts.

Good thing he only got 3 minutes. With our starters shooting 21 for 59, he probably would have disrupted our offense.

[Sothron]

When our starters as a whole showed zero effort or heart in the first half at some point a real NBA coach would have yanked them as a group and inserted five bench guys to play out the rest of the quarter or half to get a message across. But then we have Woodson. It is laughable that as horrible as our starters played that our bench barely got any run and a promising young rookie in Teague who we need to develop could only scrape THREE MINUTES of game time in a blowout loss.

[Atlantaholic]

Teague's playing time will only decrease as the season goes on. So will Joe Smith's and Zaza Pachulia's. The closer we get to the playoffs the less they will play. Then in the playoffs our starters will be worn down, and playing with nagging injuries. And the bench still won't get any playing time. It is last year all over again.

[Gray Mule]

:write a letter:

I came home from a meeting last night, only to find that Hawks had sleptwalked thru the first quarter.

They didn't wait until the 4th quarter to do this.

Looking at last night's box score, I find the following for two all star candidates:

04-15 = 11 points

11-20 = 28 points

And, as I wsatched the remainder of the game, I was with you Northcyde.

As soon as the game was completely out of reach, Jeff Teague would get

to play. We agreed. Game seemed to be out of reach by the end of 3.

Just to be sure Jeff did not mess everything up and be personally responsible

for the downfall of the entire Hawk orginization, JT was held out until there

was only three minutes remaining.

Northcyde, you and I both know. No one should blame this outcome on Jeff Teague.

:cant believe:

[Admin]

When our starters as a whole showed zero effort or heart in the first half at some point a real NBA coach would have yanked them as a group and inserted five bench guys to play out the rest of the quarter or half to get a message across. But then we have Woodson. It is laughable that as horrible as our starters played that our bench barely got any run and a promising young rookie in Teague who we need to develop could only scrape THREE MINUTES of game time in a blowout loss.

I didn't watch the game and I can't for the life of me understand why the starters played so many minutes and the bench players got so few and the only even remotely possible (although still moronic) reasoning I can come up with is that the starters were being punished for playing so poorly.

[Sothron]

I didn't watch the game and I can't for the life of me understand why the starters played so many minutes and the bench players got so few and the only even remotely possible (although still moronic) reasoning I can come up with is that the starters were being punished for playing so poorly.

I sadly watched the game, we showed no hustle, heart or energy for the entire game right from the start. There was a several minute gap several times where we couldn't score a basket and played no defense. I could not, and can not still, believe that Woodson didn't call a timeout, blast the starters and put int he bench to try and salvage the game. But he just treated it like every other game.

[mrhonline]

LaGree breaks down the troubles:

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-100104/daily-dime

The efficient version of the Hawks' offense featured the entirety of the rotation moving with and without the ball, working together in the pursuit of easy shots and taking advantage of transition opportunities. The inefficient, lead-blowing version of the offense featured a willfully slow, exclusively half-court attack predicated on Joe Johnson, in isolation, trying to break down as many defenders as the opposition chose to throw at him before he took a contested shot or found, late in the shot clock, a teammate then forced to take a (hurried) jump shot of his own.

And so on...

[Plainview1981]

This team is on the verge of throwing away what they did the first month and a half. That's why I can't get excited about this team. If you get excited by this team they will turn around and burn you with lackluster efforts. With the way they've played the last month I simply can't see how they're going to turn this around before they're record gets too close to .500.

[Gray Mule]

mrhonline: Wow! Someone not directly connected to Hawksquawk actually said something about this!

We knew this. All our NBA opponents knew this. Only the Hawks coaches apparently are the ones who

are in the dark. Either they really don't know this (Which is doubtful) or they are just too stubborn & bullheaded

to attempt to cchange anything.

You decide which it is.

:shake_puter:

[Atlantaholic]

LaGree breaks down the troubles:

http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-100104/daily-dime

And so on...

And if the other team decides to play zone then say goodbye to us scoring any points. I seriously have no freaking clue how anyone can defend our halfcourt offense, if you guys think we are winning a playoff series against any competent team than you are insane... Iso Joe will not beat Iso James, or Iso Howard, or even Iso Pierce. The only way we beat any of these teams is to play as a freaking team on offense. The fact some people were actually trying to convince me that going one on one is sound offensive basketball is nuts, not even Cleveland could get away with doing that in the playoffs and they have a player that is three times as good as Joe Johnson attempting it.

Above all else though, why do we continue to do things over and over when they are not working. I mean, why have we been running the high screen and roll with Joe Johnson non stop for the last four games??? What the hell have we been getting out of that? The other team doubles Joe, he does not pass it to the open man, continues to dribble until the player that is doubling him goes back to his man, and then either passes is it out or goes one one one... Why not just Isolate him?, why not just pass it out before there are 5 seconds left on the shot clock and Marvin or Josh have to force up a jumpshot. The only time we play great is when we face no adversity. If everyone is hitting on all cylinders than our players pass and play as a team, if we are having an off night though, then forget about it... If one player from the other team gets hot than you can also forget about Woodson adjusting his defense to account for it. During the Cleveland telecast they showed a stat that we were like 2-6 or 2-7 when trailing in the fourth quarter. Aside from a very few exceptions this team cannot play from behind at all, because we have no discipline, no system, and nothing to go to on offense other than isolating a second tier star. Unless we start crashing the boards again we will continue to struggle the way we have the last month and a half. 10-10 is our record after our 11-2 start. At this pace we will finish the year with the same record as last year, on a weaker conference than last year. What's most frustrating though, is that we are clearly better than last year. Horford is playing better, Joe is playing better, Crawford is playing A LOT better than Murray, Josh is playing better, Teague is better than Acie, and Joe Smith is better than Solomon Jones, our point differential is better, but our record is the same. Maybe we are not as good as Cleveland, Boston, or Orlando (After watching Orlando several times this year, I am actually convinced we have better talent all around then them, probably also better than Cleveland) but we are definitely better than last years team, and if we can't improve significantly from our win total than changes need to be made, because either our players don't fit our system or our system doesn't fit our players (Obviously you can guess where I stand).

[AHF]

Very true assessment from the Daily Dime, concluding with what many of us have been saying for some time:

Until the Hawks demonstrate the ability to create high-percentage shots through a diverse half-court offensive attack, the game plan for stifling them won't change. That it took more than a quarter of the season for that game plan to become consistently effective speaks to the team's potential.

[Admin]

Very true assessment from the Daily Dime, concluding with what many of us have been saying for some time:

Definitely good stuff there, and frightening that it's becoming commonplace and even more so in that I have zero confidence in Woody to be able to adjust to it.