Can we finaly shut up the Josh at the 3 nay sayers

[Admin]

I don't know if we would have outrebounded them or not. What I do know is that the game didn't turn on the rebounds. It turned on Lou Williams catching absolutely on fire in that big 3rd quarter run. And it's not like Zaza had an amazing game. He had 1 point and 9 rebounds but 2-3 of those rebounds were offensive rebounds off of his own easy misses at the rim. We've also owned the Grizzlies over the past few years and haven't done that with a "big" lineup so yeah I'm quite sure we could have won the game had we gone with the same starting lineup that had outrebounded a better rebounding team in Denver 3 games ago.I don't think the game totally turned on the boards either, but it was indeed very significant as Ric Fox and Dennis Scott pointed out after the game. Also, ZaZa may have only had one point, but his stellar defense on Zach Randolph was a huge part of winning the game. Deshawn couldn't have defended ZBo or Gay the way ZaZa and Josh did which was pivotal. I know you disagree and that's cool. The bottom line is, Hawks win.

How do you know that I disagree re Josh vs Stevenson defending Gay? Josh did a great job but Stevenson has been great defending the SF spot this year as well and Gay had an off night missing a lot of shots get normally makes. Not sure about what you're saying about Zaza defending Zach as that was Al's man. And Zach had a pretty darn nice game and scored on anyone guarding him with 18 and 13 on 75% shooting. Gasol had a very good game too against Zaza with 18 and 8 on over 50% shooting. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[Ruckus]

You mean like the lineup where we outrebounded the better rebounding Nuggets with? Funny how you crawl out of the dark after the Hawks dominated the boards in the past 2 games against the best rebounding team and then a team who outrebounded us by 20 the previous match and we did it with the smaller lineup. Big or small it doesn't matter, it's ALL about effort from the Hawks bigs and the past 3 games they've given the effort.

Thank you for this. Saved me from having to type a lot unnecessarily.

[Jody23]

How do you know that I disagree re Josh vs Stevenson defending Gay? Josh did a great job but Stevenson has been great defending the SF spot this year as well and Gay had an off night missing a lot of shots get normally makes. Not sure about what you're saying about Zaza defending Zach as that was Al's man. And Zach had a pretty darn nice game and scored on anyone guarding him with 18 and 13 on 75% shooting. Gasol had a very good game too against Zaza with 18 and 8 on over 50% shooting. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

When I said you disagree, I was referring to the lineup change significantly affecting the boards and the outcome of the game.Gay certainly had an off night, but what Josh did to him on both ends of the floor (defending and posting him) had alot to do with that.If you re-watch the third and fourth quarter, you'll see it was ZaZa, not Al, who defended ZBO almost exclusively and not only did he defend him well, he also kept him from getting key offensive boards by putting a body on him.

[MaceCase]

So....does it not say anything about the fact that Al was still guarding the 7'1" behemoth instead of the 6'9" PF? Perplexing deductions indeed in this thread.

[Admin]

How do you know that I disagree re Josh vs Stevenson defending Gay? Josh did a great job but Stevenson has been great defending the SF spot this year as well and Gay had an off night missing a lot of shots get normally makes. Not sure about what you're saying about Zaza defending Zach as that was Al's man. And Zach had a pretty darn nice game and scored on anyone guarding him with 18 and 13 on 75% shooting. Gasol had a very good game too against Zaza with 18 and 8 on over 50% shooting. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2When I said you disagree, I was referring to the lineup change significantly affecting the boards and the outcome of the game.Gay certainly had an off night, but what Josh did to him on both ends of the floor (defending and posting him) had alot to do with that.If you re-watch the third and fourth quarter, you'll see it was ZaZa, not Al, who defended ZBO almost exclusively and not only did he defend him well, he also kept him from getting key offensive boards by putting a body on him.

Gotcha. Josh did a very good job on Gay no doubt. ZBo had a monster game and an insane shooting percentage. Nobody did a good job keeping him off the glass or from scoring. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[Admin]

So....does it not say anything about the fact that Al was still guarding the 7'1" behemoth instead of the 6'9" PF? Perplexing deductions indeed in this thread.

Yeah I guess it must have been Al on him then if Zaza was on ZBo. Not that I agree that that is what went down, but Gasol wasn't as dominant as he usually is. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[Peoriabird]

How did this turn into a Zaza bashing thread?..The title of the thread is we should put to rest the notion that Josh Smith should not play small forward.

[Admin]

How did this turn into a Zaza bashing thread?..The title of the thread is we should put to rest the notion that Josh Smith should not play small forward.

Who's bashing Zaza?

And what we aren't allowed to discuss what you said in the actual body of your post, only what you wrote in the title?

[Peoriabird]

And it's not like Zaza had an amazing game. He had 1 point and 9 rebounds but 2-3 of those rebounds were offensive rebounds off of his own easy misses at the rim.

The fact still remains is rebounds matter and Zaza pulled down 9 of them. And in the Denver game he pulled down 7 of them in 23 minutes which helped us out rebound those 2 teams not Stevenson's 3 rebounds in 33 minutes. Give me the rebounds over Stevenson's limited offensive capabilities and his over rated defense. The Hawks are 3-1 with him out of the line up and teams are averaging 90 points per game with him out of the line up.

[GameTime]

We looked just as good rebounding the ball with the 'small' lineup starting. Can we please get rid of this "big lineup is superior" myth.

[Admin]

We looked just as good rebounding the ball with the 'small' lineup starting. Can we please get rid of this "big lineup is superior" myth.

I wish we could but he won't listen to facts and only comes out after a big lineup win. I'm pretty much done with this debate at this point. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[TheFuzz]

Way to get away from the topic.

Big line-up or not, Josh is still being Josh at the 3, and is far-and away the best 3 we have on the team. He completely erased any doubts I had that he could defend 3s. If the Hawks could add another big wing OR another 5 for depth (hopefully one that can start over Zaza) we'd look like legit pretender-contenders (like the Celtics), and not the pretenders we've been in the past.

[thecampster]

82games.com

Simple rating, Zaza +3.5. Stevenson -1.4

OPP rating - Negligle for Zaza

Zaza 11.9

Stevenson 13.0

Josh at the 5/4/3

5 - 4% of the time he's +1 (5.2 per)

4 - 45% of the time - he's +40 (17.6 per)

3 - 19% of the time - he's +41 (18.9 per)

So in 19% of the Hawks minutes, Josh has been on the floor and is +41

In 49% of the Hawks minutes, Josh has been the 4 or 5 and is +41.

The numbers bear out at this point that Josh at the 3 is better for the team overall and also personally for Josh as well.

Interestingly, Josh's iFG% is 50% at the 5 (too small a sample), 45% at the 4 and 49% at the 3. Playing the 3 (farther from the basket) hasn't hurt his iFG.

Another just for kicks stat.

Josh has been on the floor for 68% of the team's minutes this year and the team has been +82 in that time. +6.5 per 48 minutes.

When off the court the team is -2.9 per 48, a 9.4 point disparity.

The simple answer from this small sample of 17 games is that the team seems to perform much better with Josh at the 3 than at the 4 and most of the time, that lineup is Zaza/Al/Josh.

In a similar comparison, Horford has played the 5 for 40% of the team's minutes and is +19 in that period of time. He has played the 4 in 32% of the team's minutes and is +29 in those minutes leading one to believe the team is better when Al is at the 4.

Last bit of stats. The top 2 lineups used with Zaza in the lineup both feature Teague/Smith/Horford (with Korver and Harris spliting the time at the SG). In those 105 minutes the Hawks are +36. Or +16.47 p/48 with a Smith/Horford/Zaza front line.

[hawkshomer]

I think Josh looks much better defending the three this year. I guess the weight loss they talked about in the preseason gave him a step or two.

[coachx]

82games.com

Simple rating, Zaza +3.5. Stevenson -1.4

OPP rating - Negligle for Zaza

Zaza 11.9

Stevenson 13.0

Josh at the 5/4/3

5 - 4% of the time he's +1 (5.2 per)

4 - 45% of the time - he's +40 (17.6 per)

3 - 19% of the time - he's +41 (18.9 per)

So in 19% of the Hawks minutes, Josh has been on the floor and is +41

In 49% of the Hawks minutes, Josh has been the 4 or 5 and is +41.

The numbers bear out at this point that Josh at the 3 is better for the team overall and also personally for Josh as well.

Interestingly, Josh's iFG% is 50% at the 5 (too small a sample), 45% at the 4 and 49% at the 3. Playing the 3 (farther from the basket) hasn't hurt his iFG.

Another just for kicks stat.

Josh has been on the floor for 68% of the team's minutes this year and the team has been +82 in that time. +6.5 per 48 minutes.

When off the court the team is -2.9 per 48, a 9.4 point disparity.

The simple answer from this small sample of 17 games is that the team seems to perform much better with Josh at the 3 than at the 4 and most of the time, that lineup is Zaza/Al/Josh.

In a similar comparison, Horford has played the 5 for 40% of the team's minutes and is +19 in that period of time. He has played the 4 in 32% of the team's minutes and is +29 in those minutes leading one to believe the team is better when Al is at the 4.

Campster, stats are a good tool but context should be used.....rather then blanket statements that are all inclusive.

I would wager that Smith plays SF and Horford play PF when we face the bigger frontlines.

I would wager Smith plays PF and Horford plays C when we play smaller frontines.

I give Drew credit for mixing and matching the lineups to give us the best chance of success based on the lineup we are facing on a given night.

Edited December 10, 2012 by coachx

[thecampster]

Campster, stats are a good tool but context should be used.....rather then blanket statements that are all inclusive.

I would wager that Smith plays SF and Horford play PF when we face the bigger frontlines.

I would wager Smith plays PF and Horford plays C when we play smaller frontines.

I give Drew credit for mixing and matching the lineups to give us the best chance of success based on the lineup we are facing on a given night.

AHEM, it was Dolfan who earlier in this post made fun of someone arguing with the facts. Well the facts are very simple right now using the only "facts" we have. The team is more than twice as efficient based on +/- with Josh at the 3 and the team is +/- 16 per 48 when we play Josh/Al/Zaza. In case you are having trouble with that, here is what it means. We average winning games by 16 points with that lineup. We haven't been winning by 16 all year which means our other lineups are horribly inefficient comparably. Dolfan wanted facts...these are facts.

Context matters when the sample size is small. At 17 games we are creating a sample size large enough to start drawing conclusions if the numbers are significant enough. +16 per 48 is significant.

Edited December 10, 2012 by thecampster

[Peoriabird]

AHEM, it was Dolfan who earlier in this post made fun of someone arguing with the facts. Well the facts are very simple right now using the only "facts" we have. The team is more than twice as efficient based on +/- with Josh at the 3 and the team is +/- 16 per 48 when we play Josh/Al/Zaza. In case you are having trouble with that, here is what it means. We average winning games by 16 points with that lineup. We haven't been winning by 16 all year which means our other lineups are horribly inefficient comparably. Dolfan wanted facts...these are facts. Context matters when the sample size is small. At 17 games we are creating a sample size large enough to start drawing conclusions if the numbers are significant enough. +16 per 48 is significant.

Thank you Campster!

[macdaddy]

http://www.82games.com/1213/1213ATL2.HTM

3 of the 5 best lineups have Smoove at the 4 and by far our best 5 man lineup as far as +/- is teague/stevenson/korver/josh/horf.

[Admin]

http://www.82games.com/1213/1213ATL2.HTM

3 of the 5 best lineups have Smoove at the 4 and by far our best 5 man lineup as far as +/- is teague/stevenson/korver/josh/horf.

That's just another stat showing that they are wrong above, but I'm done providing stats and facts that show we are just as effective with Al and Josh at the 4 and 5 as we are with them at the 3 and 4. It's really not worth the time or effort anymore. The ONLY difference in where those guys play and how we perform is the effort that they put into playing.

[TheFuzz]

Back on topic, bottom line is it appears Josh CAN play the 3. So we don't HAVE to "choose" between Al or Josh, and we don't have to play Josh at the 4 and Al at the 5.

Basically that means if there's a talent upgrade at the 2, 3, 4, 5 (or even 1!) that we can get without giving up our core we can just go for it. Nice to know. Obviously if a superstar becomes available we need to be willing to give up some of the core to get him, but otherwise we can just go for whatever talent upgrades are available.

For the sake of argument, if Gallinari becomes available, go for a Gallo/Josh/Horf line up. If Aldridge becomes available, roll out a Josh/Aldridge/Horf line up. Gortat? Josh/Horf/Gortat sounds great!

Maybe Knight was on to something with his draft 500 6' 9'' players plan...

Edited December 11, 2012 by TheFuzz