Hawks - Bobcats

[lethalweapon3]

Another road-weary team arrives at Hartsfield in time for tonight’s contest with the Hawks, who looked impressive on Saturday in a victory against an L.A. Clippers team ending its four-game stretch away from home. After struggling through two overtimes to put away the Winless Wizards on Saturday, the second night of a back-to-back, and enduring a pummeling in Oklahoma City on Monday, the Charlotte Bobcats look to close out their road trip by avenging a 10-point home loss to Atlanta from Friday. The Bobcats still have plenty to play for. They can exceed their win total from 2011-12 by the end of November with a win either tonight or back home on Friday against the Sixers.

Rookie coach Mike Dunlap says his Bobcats are “too young to throw the tape away” after that 114-69 pummeling at the hands of the Thunder last night. Don’t you believe him. That 45-point loss (with a margin as bad as 57 points by the third quarter), largest game-ending deficit in team history, is already a distant memory. Lost in the hullaballoo over the demoralizing defeat was the Cats missing both Gerald Henderson (foot sprain) and Bismack Biyombo (lower leg contusion), two players that could have at least slowed OKC’s momentum with their defensive abilities.

Without Biyombo, the Bobcats were reliant on starter Brendan Haywood and Gana Diop to plug the hole – no more needs to be said about that. The Thunder broke out on a 22-3 run against Charlotte before things really got absurd, getting the biggest halftime lead in the NBA since 1991. Biyombo is expected to return tonight, while Henderson is still iffy. With or without those two opposing players, the Hawks will seek to get a nice head start as well.

Al Horford will help to get things going. He had one of those games (26 points on 13-for-17 shooting, 8-for-10 in the first half, 13 rebounds, and 3 blocks) on Friday that helped him make the case for his Player of the Week nod, virtually unimpeded by Charlotte defenders on pick-and-roll sets. Haywood and/or Diop will need help from Byron Mullens (6 steals and 2 blocks on Friday) to be more disruptive to Horford in the paint, and to come out and contest when Al’s looking to pop that mid-range shot. Hack-an-Al may even be deployed, compelling him to work out his free throw shooting issues (1 FT made out his last 12 over 3 games).

DeShawn Stevenson, a DNP-CD in Saturday’s win against the Clippers, will start and likely defend against Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. The multifaceted rookie mixed it up throughout the game on Friday and managed 4 blocks, but MKG also registered 5 fouls and was rejected three times himself. He’ll be needed to stay out of foul trouble but, perhaps this time, help tighten up the Cats’ perimeter defense. Starters Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, and Stevenson were a combined 10-for-16 from 3-point land on Friday.

Kidd-Gilchrist helped slow Josh Smith (10 points, 4 rebounds, 5 turnovers but 8 assists) on Friday, so Smith could have a big day offensively if MKG leaves him to help on the outside. The Bobcats may have been watching old Syracuse Final Four highlights when they decided to trade for Hakim Warrick, a better option in their frontcourt than Matt Carroll. Maybe he can go dive after the Hawk shooters while MKG sticks with Smoove.

Reggie Williams has not had significant floor time in weeks before the bench was emptied in OKC, so there may be an opportunity for him to help defend the Hawk wings instead, or at least counter them.

His minutes now cut in half from last season, Williams may have aggravated Dunlap’s uncertainty about him after calling a timeout late in a game at Minnesota on November 15 when the Cats were fresh out of them, resulting in a technical. Charlotte then needed last-second heroics from Kemba Walker to keep from blowing a 14-point lead in that game.

Leading Bobcat scorers Walker and Ramon Sessions remain poor perimeter shooters (19.4 and 21.9 3FG%, respectively), and it will be crucial for Teague to stay in front of them, as he did for the first three quarters of their last contest, and for him and Lou Williams to get around screens quickly.

Jeffery Taylor continued to start at shooting guard in Henderson’s absence, as Dunlap prefers to bring veteran defensive liability Ben Gordon off the bench. Taylor actually led the Bobcats by default in scoring against OKC, with 10 points, while displaying some athleticism on a garbage-time reverse jam (“garbage-time” being the second quarter, haha). With Devin Harris still hampered by turf toe, would this be a good time to trot out our Vandy rookie for meaningful minutes as well? This could be an ideal game to get John Jenkins into the rotation.

The Bobcats are top-five in the league in per-game steals (2^nd) and blocks (4^th), and the Hawks helped them in these categories in last week’s game, with season-highs of 16 turnovers-off-steals and 9 shots blocked.

Like GrayMule's corndogs, will the Hawks have the Bobcats for lunch? Charlotte has the third-worst shooting percentage in the NBA, which bodes well for an Atlanta team that ranks first in defensive efficiency (98.1 points per 100 possessions) and second only to the Pacers in lowest opponent field goal percentage (42.7%). Charlotte’s opponents are racking up a league-leading 24.2 assists per game, which also plays well for the Hawks, who are top-five in per-game dimes (22.9). Opponents are swatting Bobcat shots (8.6 per game) more than any other, which sounds good to Smith and the Hawks, who returned 15 shots to sender on Friday.

Still, this has all the trappings of a trap game for the Hawks. Hopefully, a fully-rested team should be prepared and capable of recognizing it for what it is.

Go Hawks!

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

The Hawks have been producing quick pre-game clips from the comedy troupe at Village Theatre (second best in town after Dad's Garage, IMO) and posting them on their official YouTube page, so i figured I'd share them here.

~lw3

Edited November 29, 2012 by Dolfan23

[Peoriabird]

Why is Drew so in love with Deshawn Stevenson? He has a per of 8.3...Lowest on the team amoungst the regular rotation but yet he averages more minutes per game than Lou Williams and he starts over Zaza. I don't get it!

[macdaddy]

Why is Drew so in love with Deshawn Stevenson? He has a per of 8.3...Lowest on the team amoungst the regular rotation but yet he averages more minutes per game than Lou Williams and he starts over Zaza. I don't get it!

He can defend the scorers in this league one on one, and williams, harris, korver, morrow cannot

[Peoriabird]

He can defend the scorers in this league one on one, and williams, harris, korver, morrow cannot

But he didn't even play against our toughest opponent during the 5 game winning streak and we won easily. We struggled at times in the games in which he played...Needing over-time to beat the Wizards!

[effjee14]

Is the game on tv tonight. If not, is there any internet streaming. Thx. Go hawks

[adfalcon]

how are they hanging around

[Gray Mule]

Bob Cats have stopped Atlanta's inside offense.

It's either a 3 or a turnover. Hit a few mid range

twos but we've abandoned the inside game.

Gotta adjust or we're in trouble. Charlotte is

shooting well for the first half.

++++++++

[Ruckus]

Teague, Lou, and Devin on the court at the same time? This could be interesting.

[cam1218]

Hawks seemed to be going through the motions for most of the first half. We played well to start the second half and seemed to have full control of the game until the very end. Bobcats, mainly Gordon, kept it close.A win is a win though. I'll take it in any way possible! Glad to see Horford step up and make his free throws like we know he can.

[Peoriabird]

Deshawn Stevenson 1-5 from the field 1-4 from 3 0 steals 0 assist -9 +/- 3 points. He did have 1 block and 4 rebounds but I still need someone to explain what Drew sees in this guy to play him over Zaza and Ivan Johnson?

[Azodl]

This game should have been put away at many different points, but they still got it done. No Ivan Johnson? Hm.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Azodl

[Admin]

Definitely should have won this game by more than we did and if it hadn't been for Gordon going unconscious we certainly would have. It really is a miracle we won this game taking so many 3 pointers though.

[Ruckus]

I hope Korver stays healthy. We look like a different team without him.

Edited November 29, 2012 by HawkFan

[lethalweapon3]

Never mind the missed FTs at the end, that 3rd quarter was as good as I've seen from Josh Smith live in quite some time!

I gotta admit it was like a reverse of when Josh has the ball; every time a capable shooter had the ball at the 3-point line, people were screaming, "SHOOT IT!" How many threes did we take anyway? I lost count. We have to find a little better balance offensively, but I swear, from the seats, those assisted threes are addicting!

Small but aggressive crowd! I didn't get the Kemba-hate exactly; "OV-ER-RA-TED" on free throws (could y'all hear that)? I don't remember seeing the same chants for Biyombo who was drafted two spots ahead of him.

Ben Gordon Unconscious was about the only thing that made that a close contest by the end of the game. That, and Biyombo bismacking every shot within sight of him.

Even without Kyle's services later in the game, the Hawks did what they had to do not to stay ensnared in the trap for that "trap game." On to the next one!

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

Bon Apetit!

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

Deshawn Stevenson 1-5 from the field 1-4 from 3 0 steals 0 assist -9 +/- 3 points. He did have 1 block and 4 rebounds but I still need someone to explain what Drew sees in this guy to play him over Zaza and Ivan Johnson?

DeShawn was definitely not as automatic as his personal teller machine tonight on offense. And he got royally screwed by the refs on a phantom And-1 call in the first half. But I gotta say he was doing his best "thorn-in-the-side" impressions on MKG and Jeffery Taylor. Both were visibly flustered offensively in that first and third quarter -- any time either had to deal with Smoove and/or DeShawn, they weren't getting the shots they wanted.

That said, I kinda wanted a little bit of a refund with Ivan DNP-CD'd. The Ivan vs. Mully matchup I envisioned never came to fruition!

~lw3

[rusty]

LD is still a idiot. Where is Ivan,took JT out for big stretches. Had josh &Al running after Gordon,like old times.

[Colin]

How did Zaza look?

[lethalweapon3]

How did Zaza look?

Z-Pac? We got the usual Moments of Bossiness from him. He was not very effective in the first half, sloppy at the start. But his lay-ups in the second half stretched the lead as far as it would go, especially the and-one around the start of the final quarter. While I was fine with DeShawn in the game, subbing him in for Zaza with a few minutes left coincided with that late charge by the "Ben"cats.

I like when Zaza gets the offensive board and goes right back up with a shot. It's when brings the ball back down below his waist and/or takes a dribble trying to gather himself that he gets in trouble. I may be mistaken, but I think he got swatted a couple times by Biyombo doing just that (coming back down with the ball off the rebound).

~lw3