Larry Drew is the new Mr. Perfect

[willthepureshooter]

I find it quite odd that Larry Drew and his coaching staff never take any accountability for losses. I mean, all of the greats have called themselves out for poor team management from Lenny Wilkins, Phil Jackson, Doc Rivers, Red Auerbach, etc.. But Larry Drew and the Pointer Sisters continue to shovel blame by using the term energy as an excuse. Last night was a perfect example of mismanagement.. He added two offensively poor players into the starting line-up, Johan Petro and Tolliver.. We all watched in complete dismay as Paul George ran Tolliver into the mill. Petro got abused by every low-post playing Pacer up and down the floor. He continues to miss wide open layups and dunks, which I don't understand with him being in the Nba. Jeff Teague couldn't do much with clogged lanes and poor shooters on the floor. I mean what did Drew expect, for Teague to run pick and rolls using Petro?? We all watched this lineup painfully for an entire three quarters without Drew and his staff making adjustments. It's only fair after Josh made adjustments to his offensive game from the start to play inside the post. And he was very effective as he abused the Pacers down low. Horford disappeared against Hibbert for some reason, he don't like playing against players bigger than him I guess.. But it's up to the coach to call him out and throw him under the bus we doesn't perform. Punishment can't be one-sided Drew. Donte Jones should never have the ball in his hands on the wing. Never.. But guess what?! Once offensive minded players were put into the game the lead shrunk and we had a chance to win. He chose to bench the starters including Smoove, whom was having a good game. John Jenkins and Deshawn Stevenson were benched for Tolly Love instead..Here's some Larry Drew from his post conference.... lol The most disappointing thing was in the third quarter, when we just lost The most disappointing thing was in the third quarter, when we just lost our composure, particularly with the officiating, coach Larry Drew said. our composure, particularly with the officiating, coach Larry Drew said. We didnt handle in the right way and we lost our composure. The way we We didnt handle in the right way and we lost our composure. The way we responded took us out of our game.This guy should be coaching high school ball.. Danny get him out of here!!Here's some Deshawn.. lol Stevenson was clearly frustrated by his role with the Hawks following the Stevenson was clearly frustrated by his role with the Hawks following the game. game.I was just hooping, Stevenson said of the late rally. I felt like the guys out I was just hooping, Stevenson said of the late rally. I felt like the guys out there had something to prove. We went out there and proved it. It is what it there had something to prove. We went out there and proved it. It is what it is. is.I didnt know what was going on. I never do. I just went out there and gave I didnt know what was going on. I never do. I just went out there and gave it my all. Thats what I do."

Edited March 26, 2013 by willthepureshooter

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

I agree and Drew's biggest glaring weakness is his substitution packages. I do not understand why Jenkins and Deshawn didn't get minutes until the end of game and in those minutes, they both proved why they should be getting minutes every game. To Drew benefit though, we really could have used Zaza and few other guys vs. Indy. Drew likes to complain about energy and accountability... This is coming from one of the most low-energy coaches I have ever seen that never holds himself accountable. You look at the coaches you listed... All of them command the troops and dish out blame, including to themselves, after losses. Hell, even Woody was alway involved. Joe's contract was the biggest whoops by the ASG; a close second was letting Woody go.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bahamut]

Joe's contract was the biggest whoops by the ASG; a close second was hiring Woody instead of Doc Rivers.

Where would we be now?

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Drew irritates me to the core, with all of the lineup changes according to how WE match up with our opponent. Never do we stay with a consistent enough lineup to force opponents to match up with US. That's why this team goes through tremendous ebbs and flows. Drew "outthinks" himself.

Starting Petro vs Hibbert, I can understand. Even with that move, you only keep Petro on him unless he is effective. IF he isn't, and you need a better defender or more firepower in the game, get him out of there. Starting Dahntay Jones . . . nah. Not against a balanced offensive team like the Pacers. At least Stevenson can give you some timely 3 point shooting while playing decent defense. With Dahntay, you're getting virtually no offense whatsoever.

So Drew expected an unbalanced offense to be carried by Horford, Smith, and Teague . . with Petro and Jones playing "lockdown defense" to limit the production of Hibbert and George? But Drew blames "energy" as the reason why they lost?

It must be nice to live in a world in which the coach bears no responsibility whatsoever for losses like these. Drew is definitely not the coach for a team like this. He's a big part of the reason why this team is so inconsistent.

[Peoriabird]

Don't talk about Benhill's boy LD like that.

[HawkItus]

To be accurate I don't hear them take credit for wins either. He always says "these guys fought hard" etc. So if he isn't taking credit for either you have to call him consistent.

[tonegully]

Petro should only play for 5 fouls. just like Twin. He is not a NBA player. Drew needs to be fired with the whole staff. We need a change of culture and it starts with ownership on down. If we don't get some big time FA at least get a big name coach

[buckeye242424]

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

Drew irritates me to the core, with all of the lineup changes according to how WE match up with our opponent. Never do we stay with a consistent enough lineup to force opponents to match up with US. That's why this team goes through tremendous ebbs and flows. Drew "outthinks" himself.

That's what happens when two of you top 3 players are tweeners. We all know Horf struggles with big centers in the league and we all have been saying that he should be at the 4, but starting Zaza at 5 makes Petro our backup center and with him injured makes it a moot point. Smith can guard 3 or 4 and I believe he can play both positions too. Problem is injuries and being an undersized team. A FA center in the offseason fixes this.

Starting Petro vs Hibbert, I can understand. Even with that move, you only keep Petro on him unless he is effective. IF he isn't, and you need a better defender or more firepower in the game, get him out of there. Starting Dahntay Jones . . . nah. Not against a balanced offensive team like the Pacers. At least Stevenson can give you some timely 3 point shooting while playing decent defense. With Dahntay, you're getting virtually no offense whatsoever.

Once again, injuries. Harris was out, Korver is better off the bench, and George would have destroyed Jenkins. I agree that Deshawn would have been a better option, but that goes with hindsight... Deshawn has those knees.

So Drew expected an unbalanced offense to be carried by Horford, Smith, and Teague . . with Petro and Jones playing "lockdown defense" to limit the production of Hibbert and George? But Drew blames "energy" as the reason why they lost?It must be nice to live in a world in which the coach bears no responsibility whatsoever for losses like these. Drew is definitely not the coach for a team like this. He's a big part of the reason why this team is so inconsistent.

No one could have guessed that a Pacers team w/o Granger, West, and George Hill would have played as well as they did. I believe they shot 70% in the third quarter and it didn't aid our cause that Horf and Teague were off their games. With Hill and West out, I'd thought the both of them would have ran wild, but they didn't. Not saying that Drew is the coach of the future, but you can't pin the Indy loss solely on him. I love Vogel as a coach and he showed Danny what a well coached team can do. And I loved that he continued to ride with the bench when they fought back and got it within 4. The Pacers game in nutshell: they were on, we were off.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

To be accurate I don't hear them take credit for wins either. He always says "these guys fought hard" etc. So if he isn't taking credit for either you have to call him consistent.

I said that Drew is part of the reason why the TEAM is inconsistent. And even if he doesn't take credit for some of these wins, his lineups and sub patters have A LOT to do with some of those losses.

Why an "energy guy" like Ivan Johnson can't get consistent ROTATIONAL minutes every night is mind boggling to me. Even when he does make mistakes, he's making a lot of things happen as well ( ala Josh Smith ).

On a Per 36 minute basis, here is where Ivan ranks on the team in various categories

POINTS: 15.5 . . ( 5th on the team )

REBOUNDS: 9.2 . . ( 5th . . and a higher rate than Josh Smith's 8.6 rebs per 36 minutes )

STEALS: 1.9 . . ( 1st on the team )

FIELD GOAL %: .502 . . ( 2nd . . only behind Horford )

FT ATTEMPTS: 4.7 . . ( 1st on the team )

His weakness as a player are the turnovers and the fouling that he seems to do ( because he plays so aggressive ). But the one guy who almost always brings the "energy" on the floor, can't get consistent minutes?

Ivan makes some of the former big man scrubs we used to have around here ( Shelden Williams, Jason Collins, Solomon Jones, Joe Smith, etc ) look like D-League players. But he can't get a set amount or even extended minutes on a given night?

Seriously . . WTF is that all about?

[Peoriabird]

Drew did take credit for the home Milwaukee game in his press conference. He said that initially he was going with the big line up against them but went with the small line up which won the game for the Hawks. He also said "great decision by the coach"

[TheNorthCydeRises]

That's what happens when two of you top 3 players are tweeners. We all know Horf struggles with big centers in the league and we all have been saying that he should be at the 4, but starting Zaza at 5 makes Petro our backup center and with him injured makes it a moot point. Smith can guard 3 or 4 and I believe he can play both positions too. Problem is injuries and being an undersized team. A FA center in the offseason fixes this.

No. Drew has ALWAYS shuffled his lineups. He was doing this crap last year. And it's not just with the starting lineup, it's with his rotations off the bench. You have bench players ( some of them supposedly main rotation bench players ) who literally do not know if they're going to play on a nightly basis. Ivan is a perfect example of this. He should easily be averaging 20+ minutes a game on this team. For a guy like Anthony Tolliver to be getting more time than Ivan, is almost a travesty.

. Once again, injuries. Harris was out, Korver is better off the bench, and George would have destroyed Jenkins. I agree that Deshawn would have been a better option, but that goes with hindsight... Deshawn has those knees.

So because of injuries, he puts the weakest possible lineup out on the floor? He never thought for one second to start Korver to give that starting unit a little more pop offensively, while telling Horford to "suck it up" and play his game?

Petro was -19 in that 1st half in 17 minutes of play. And Drew went with a starting lineup of Teague - Korver - Tolliver - Smith - Horford to start the 2nd half. LOL . . . the very 2 people he started the game with, didn't even play after halftime. And Drew was so stubborn, he didn't even have any substitutions AT ALL in that 3rd quarter.

NONE.

He let that lead balloon to 28 points and STILL didn't take some of his inserted pieces out of the game in favor of the bench. Then when he decides to put the end of the bench in, they BALLED. Drew didn't even think about using some of those guys before the game got out of hand. He played Petro, Tolliver, and Dahntay Jones before he played any of the younger, more talented guys.

Sorry sir. That was a classic case of Drew "outsmarting" himself. Instead of playing to OUR STRENGTHS, he constantly changes the lineup to TRY to limit the strengths of the other team. Meanwhile, they don't even worry about us like that, because our team identity chances on a game by game basis.

No one could have guessed that a Pacers team w/o Granger, West, and George Hill would have played as well as they did. I believe they shot 70% in the third quarter and it didn't aid our cause that Horf and Teague were off their games. With Hill and West out, I'd thought the both of them would have ran wild, but they didn't. Not saying that Drew is the coach of the future, but you can't pin the Indy loss solely on him. I love Vogel as a coach and he showed Danny what a well coached team can do. And I loved that he continued to ride with the bench when they fought back and got it within 4. The Pacers game in nutshell: they were on, we were off.

What you mean no one could've guessed that? The Pacers have been doing this for almost 2 years now. Injuries don't phase that team because they have a solid TEAM from 1 - 10. Hibbert and George are All-Star caliber players at their position. Augustin is a former starting PG. Green is the most athletic player in the league. Hansbrough is a scrapper. Pacers are built on defense and balance, and can survive without decent offensive players because of this.

Meanwhile, the Hawks have ALWAYS had this trend of letting scrub players have career nights on us. So it isn't a surprise that Jeff Pendergraph, Gerald Green and Orlando Johnson look like ballers against us. And since the Hawks aren't built to defend, those nights to see scrubs balling have become more frequent.

Bottom line is that Drew needs to play his best 9 guys, no matter what kind of matchup problems our opponent supposedly presents to us. George and Hibbert didn't even SCORE in the 4th quarter. But the lead was so big, that we couldn't recover.

Drew should've fallen on the sword for that loss last night. He needs to stop blaming the players all the time, simply because he doesn't want to take fault in ANYTHING that goes wrong with this team.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Changes on a game by game basis. Not "chances"

[Sothron]

Please don't compare a mediocre coach to one of the best technical wrestlers who died way too young in Curt Henning "Mr. Perfect".

[benhillboy]

Don't talk about Benhill's boy LD like that.

Shot taken. I like him, but not enough to defend him here. All valid points. I still contend Drew has done very well given all the things working against him in his tenure here: busy injury bug this season, Josh, Homecourt disadvantage, ownership, major roster change, no job security, etc. I tend to look at the bright side economically with this team, and fact is we have a coach's salary and payroll much lower than the league average but are a slightly above average team. That gives me hope that with above average money spent, we'll easily be a team with realistic expectations of the Conference Finals.

[Peoriabird]

Shot taken. I like him, but not enough to defend him here. All valid points.I still contend Drew has done very well given all the things working against him in his tenure here: busy injury bug this season, Josh, Homecourt disadvantage, ownership, major roster change, no job security, etc.

Sorry Benhill but I couldn't resist...but anyway here is my response

1) I'll give you the injury bug but other teams like the Bulls, Pacers, Knicks etc are experiencing the same injury bug.

2) Josh is LD's creation. 3 years ago under Woodson, Josh took 5 three's the entire season! Know look at him

3) Home court disadvantage come from #2 and the inconsistency of this team..I mean getting blown out by Portland at home while in a playoff race???

4) Ownership has spent the money...have they spent as much as LA? No! But there are plenty of teams that haven't who are better than the Hawks like Denver, Memphis and Houston.

5) Houston had a major roster change, Chicago has had a major roster change, New Jersey has had a major roster change, Boston has had a major roster change. Many team have had major roster changes and some times it improved the team.

6) The only coach with Job security is Pop. Heck they were talking about firing Spostra during the 1st month of the season.

[MrMeltdown]

Offensively that starting lineup made 0 sense. Josh was the go to guy to start the game and he looks to kick out of the post for 3's problem is there were no shooters on floor. Solution, Kyle should have started over Dahntay. Then, he got away with we were tied at the end of 1. So, what does he do? Watch the other team get total momentum before putting Josh and Jeff back in. LD sometimes displays a poor feel for the game and so does Teague and Harris that is a bad combination.

[swolehawk2]

Drew irritates me to the core, with all of the lineup changes according to how WE match up with our opponent. Never do we stay with a consistent enough lineup to force opponents to match up with US. That's why this team goes through tremendous ebbs and flows. Drew "outthinks" himself. Starting Petro vs Hibbert, I can understand. Even with that move, you only keep Petro on him unless he is effective. IF he isn't, and you need a better defender or more firepower in the game, get him out of there. Starting Dahntay Jones . . . nah. Not against a balanced offensive team like the Pacers. At least Stevenson can give you some timely 3 point shooting while playing decent defense. With Dahntay, you're getting virtually no offense whatsoever. So Drew expected an unbalanced offense to be carried by Horford, Smith, and Teague . . with Petro and Jones playing "lockdown defense" to limit the production of Hibbert and George? But Drew blames "energy" as the reason why they lost? It must be nice to live in a world in which the coach bears no responsibility whatsoever for losses like these. Drew is definitely not the coach for a team like this. He's a big part of the reason why this team is so inconsistent.

Man, I was about to post this, almost exactly. Glad its not just me that thinks LD blew this from jump.

[Guest]

The game by game lineup change is just assinine. I have no issue with it in certain instances but every game it changes. Imagine how difficult it is for the players to adjust game to game.

[frosgrim]

Being consistent is one thing that most people want. Athletes, for the most part, want to know how much they are going to play so they can be ready for that. Certainly injuruies will change that, but Drew changes line-ups almost nightly for the reasons others have mentioned. The man just doesn't know what he's doing as a HC.

It is so past time to wash the team of the Billy Knight-mare that it isn't funny. We need a complete make-over to 1) excite the players on the team, and 2) to get this dormant fan-base interested in the Hawks. Getting a new HC is an extremely important first step.