Peachtree Hoops: Atlanta Hawks: News & Notes Following Lakers Loss

[Hawksquawk]

Lets get straight to it

Larry Drew post-game:

"I can’t fault my team’s effort tonight," 

Larry Drew

 said. "We ran against a really good team. We ran against a hot team."

I thought it was an improvement over Sunday's game against New York but at the end of the day it is the same result.

Ken Sugiura on Larry Drew's reasoning for not going big in the starting lineup:

If you’re wondering, Drew said he decided to go with the "regular" lineup rather than the big lineup with

 

Jason Collins

 

because they went that route in the first game and didn’t get enough offense from it. (Collins was 0-for-1 for 0 points in the first game, if you’re wondering, although Bynum only had five points.) (That was

 

Mike Bibby

’s last game. 0-for-3, 0 points, 0 assists, 1 rebound. Ouch.) With the team struggling offensively, Drew said he thought he had to go with Horford at center.

Right call or not I will credit him with trying something. Too bad the fast break points advantage couldn't offset the significant advantage the Lakers had in points in the paint. 

Al Horford on transition and jump shots:

"I think we settled for a lot of jump shots [in transition]," Horford said. "I don’t think we were running hard enough."

This team has to find more balance. Those outside shots are much more likely to succeed if the ball in entered into the post first. 

Sugiura on the Hawks ball movement:

The 

Hawks

 moved the ball better than in recent games, but the Lakers made them labor for open shots and forced them into plenty of contested ones. After shooting 60.0 percent in the first quarter, the 

Hawks

 shot 33.3 percent the rest of the way.

Larry Drew on Damien Wilkins and playing time:

"I definitely want to try to find more minutes for him because he has that ability to give you that energy and give you that intensity,"

Is Damien Wilkins going to further cut into Marvin Williams' playing time?

Jeff Schultz pretty much summarizes the last three losses for the Hawks:

Drew wanted his players to run more. They didn’t. He wanted them to attack the basket instead of settling for jump shots. They didn’t. He wanted them to play with more aggression on defense, and by the way, if you want to knock somebody down, really, it’s OK. They didn’t (and didn’t).

Dexter Fishmore on the Lakers offensive attack:

All evening long, the Lakers played inside-out from the post, exploiting their height advantage over Atlanta's front line and ripping seams in the

Hawks

' interior D. Sharing the rock, making strong moves to the hole, stepping into jumpers... all that good stuff was on the plate, and it came together deliciously in the form of 1.20 points per possession.

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