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Merged: My God, My God, The Hawks Are A $%#$## Juggernaut (Deadspin Love)

BackForThe2ndTime

By BackForThe2ndTime
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BackForThe2ndTime Newbie

BackForThe2ndTime

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The Atlanta Hawks led the Washington Wizards 87-77 after the third quarter yesterday, which isn't nothing as leads go, but, in its broad outline the game still had the feel of one whose outcome could go either way. The Hawks looked sharper, sure, but the Wizards had won the second quarter and gotten as close as three points in the third, and a tight, exciting, competitive finish between two of the East's best teams seemed plausible.

 

 

Then each member of the Hawks grew four extra limbs and torrents of lava erupted from their roaring mouths and a pit opened up at midcourt and the Wizards fell into it and were consumed by the earth itself, and the Hawks won by 31. That's pretty much how it goes for Atlanta's opponents, these days. They've won 22 of their last 24 games. They are f***ing terrifying.

 

 

Everyone who logs minutes for the Hawks is good. Not just in the sense that literally everyone but Kirk Hinrich who makes it to the NBA, by definition, is good at basketball, but also in the sense that every member of Atlanta's rotation causes matchup problems in some way or another. The Hawks never don't have a bunch of guys on the court who can shoot and move the ball and defend; they just keep coming, foul trouble and injury and heat-death of the universe be damned, more and more guys who can shoot and move the ball and defend, forever, all of them wearing red and navy. A defender leaves his man for a split second to rotate toward the hoop and head off a dribble-drive, and suddenly the ball is pinging around faster than your eye can follow it, like laser light through a mirror-maze, everybody scrambling madly to close out every corner of a hopelessly stretched-out floor, until it finds a guy, some guy, who the f*** is that guy, do they have eight dudes on the floor or what, and he's draining an open three, another f***ing open three, and every skeleton inside the other team turns to jelly in defeat.

 

 

Defending the Hawks is as much a test of mental and psychological endurance as it is a physical challenge. Can defenders summon the energy and focus and commitment and sheer will to A) help contain the ball-handler, then B) anticipate the ball movement, then C) run like hell to close out on a shooter, then D) recover, rotate, and run like hell toward another shooter, all at a dead sprint, all the time, for 48 minutes, when there are shooters everywhere and it never works and after the first five minutes it starts to seem like nothing so much as trying to build a sandcastle in the actual ocean itself, like an interpretive dance whose meaning is "futility?" This is why the Hawks won the fourth quarter by 21 points last night. The Wizards, god bless them, were tired. Physically and mentally. In their heads, they were already back at the hotel, sobbing into their pillows.

 

 

Still, even stipulating that all the Hawks are good, man, Kyle Korver is just unfair.

 

 

 

My favorite play in that highlight reel isn't the slick behind-the-back pass to DeMarre Carroll on the break, or the sweet lob over the top to Al Horford for a dunk, or the bananas catch-and-shoot from 28 feet. No, my favorite is the simple corner three Korver hits at around 1:55. He loops along the baseline as Dennis Schröder sends an entry pass to Horford in the post; the instant Horford detects that the Wizards are twisted out of shape defensively, he fires the ball out to Pero Antić at the top of the key, and Antić doesn't even waste time rotating it to the next guy: he skips it right past Thabo Sefolosha to Korver in the corner. Look at the two Wizards, Bradley Beal and Martell Webster, as they recognize where the ball is going and both, simultaneously, sellout to get there. Their mingled desperation and despair. Even as they're flying out there—Hell no, not this time, goddammit not another three—they know they're beat. The shot rattling around for a second, before (of course) dropping through, is just a taunt, a troll move, one last glimmer of false hope.

 

 

Ol' Kyle's been around for a long time—he played with Allen Iverson in Philadelphia what seems like a thousand years ago—but until he landed with the Hawks, he'd mostly been used to stretch the floor for guys who can't shoot. Credit the Hawks's braintrust with the mad-scientist idea of combining him with a bunch of other guys who can shoot, and letting him do stuff other than running to the wing with his hands in front of his chest; turns out, he's a nifty passer, a smart and credible defender, and can drive past a closeout to get himself in range for a floater. He's a real basketball player now that, at 33, he's finally allowed to be one. All the while, the threat of his shooting range still warps NBA defenses just as much as John Wall's speed, or Boogie Cousins's power, or tying all their shoelaces together, or an asteroid strike.

And: he's Atlanta's fourth-best player. The Hawks are a nightmare.

 

http://deadspin.com/my-god-my-god-the-hawks-are-a-f***ing-juggernaut-1678986975

Edited by BackForThe2ndTime
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JETSET Newbie

JETSET

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Yeah that was awesome! I finally got to watch yesterdays game this morning and man oh man was it fun! Terrifying sounds like the perfect description of how opponents must see us these days. 

It was a straight party in Phillips last night.  That Mike Scott dunk in the 4th had the crowd in a frenzy.  We had some Washington fans near us and they started to talk a bit in the 3rd.  Needless to say, not long in to the 4th, they suddenly had family on the other side of the arena that they had to go meet up with.

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Radio story:

Jamie Dukes (yes he's a turd) of 92.9 The Game said he had ran into Sam Cassell in LAL over the weekend so they started talking Hawks, Cassell said Paul Pierce called him before the Wizard game asking about his thoughts on the Hawks. Cassell said they are legit especially defensively, they attack the ball on defense.

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WillyMo Newbie

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"Defending the Hawks is as much a test of mental and psychological endurance as it is a physical challenge. Can defenders summon the energy and focus and commitment and sheer will to A) help contain the ball-handler, then B) anticipate the ball movement, then C) run like hell to close out on a shooter, then D) recover, rotate, and run like hell toward another shooter, all at a dead sprint, all the time, for 48 minutes, when there are shooters everywhere and it never works and after the first five minutes it starts to seem like nothing so much as trying to build a sandcastle in the actual ocean itself,"

 

 

I love this....

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The Million Dollar Question: How long before teams start copying us ?

Easier said than done. You have to get the ENTIRE team to buy in. In the words of Gregg Popovich:

We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren't impressed with the hoopla. One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and know the pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them.

Philly, Orlando and I think Charlotte all have coaches who coached under Pop, granted not as long as Bud. Those offenses look nothing like ours.

Additionally, our defense deserves as much pub as the offense. The same way we move the ball on offense, players move to attack the ball on defense.

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benhillboy Grand Master

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Easier said than done. You have to get the ENTIRE team to buy in. In the words of Gregg Popovich:

We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren't impressed with the hoopla. One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and know the pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them.

Philly, Orlando and I think Charlotte all have coaches who coached under Pop, granted not as long as Bud. Those offenses look nothing like ours.

Additionally, our defense deserves as much pub as the offense. The same way we move the ball on offense, players move to attack the ball on defense.

You probably were thinking New Orleans, common mistake.

But yeah, none of those guys are notable, Jaque is good IMO, he beat us and may have some clue as to best defend the offense. Bud seems to have been virtually Pop's equal in installing styles of play on the offensive end.

On a side note, we get sort of a compliment from the notorious Celtics announcing crew. The lead guy says "this isn't Dominique's Hawks". F&@ks that supposed to mean buddy? Then Tommy, a couple years late, says "Korver has turned into a fabulous player". Break up the Hawks.

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Randy Newbie

Randy

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Is my memory right/ Was Deadspin was the one that trashed the Hawks after we lost to the Lakesters?

 

If so, I hope they enjoyed eating their words.  Their comments on Kyle are interesting.  When he played for other teams, I always knew he was a good shooter, but was never really worried about him changing the outcome of a game.  He sure does that a lot since he has become a Hawk.

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Admin Newbie

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lol awesome read.  Loved the Korver vids as well. 

 

I'm new here, long time Hawks fan and browser.  Figured I'd say what's up.  I'm 23. I try and watch around 80% of the Hawks games every season when I can.  Ready for tonights against Philly

 

Welcome aboard! Glad you decided to create an account. And just to get you started on people giving you a hard time, you're the one who broke our server by forcing us to be too large! j/k welcome

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