It Deon Figures...

[jaywalker72]

It figures that, with company over tonight and me being only able to catch some of the game, that I come to "the essential message board for fans of the Atlanta Hawks" and find zero about the win tonight.

Nothing. Nathan. Nada.

Thanks, everyone....phhhtbbbt!!!

[Admin]

Been having problems getting on here for a few hours now.......

My comments on the game. JT came to play and showed that he is a better player than Arenas (when he wants to be). Theo was Theo and is it possible that SAR is having his best year ever? I am really loving his game this year. If we could just surround him with one more all-star caliber player at the SG position with some ball handling skills (dont those grow on trees?)

One thing I can definitely say is that Washington is a worse team that we are so we might have trouble getting that 1st overall pick.

Good win tonight though.

[mrhonline]

I want that #1 pick! I want to be able to choose any player I want! Let the Knicks be the overachievers!

Sincerely,

Billy Knight

[Playmaker0017]

Sorry Jay, I was cleaning my kitchen and fixing a nice cup of Green Tea.

Ummm... let's see...

1st Quarter:

* We come out aggressive and cause a couple TOs. We score some and they start to freak. They do their best Hawks impression when faced with adversity and that was chunk up shots EARLY in the shotclock.

* Everything was inside. Our gaurds to our center. Most shots were inside drives and open 10-15 foot jumpers.

* Dion Glover can't dribble and turned it over twice on dribbles off his own body. Ungaurded, nonetheless.

2nd Quarter:

* Scrubs in. Not much good happens.

* Diaw looks hurt. He isn't playing awful, but he doesn't have his spring. The refs hate Diaw and will call a foul on him if he adjusts his underwear.

* Reef gets put back in and we start to show some life, except Jackson really thinks Jackson is the next coming of Jesus Christ. Jacks up three three-pointers. One of them was a complete airball, the other one was after three pump fakes and the final one was after two pump fakes. Needless to say, none were open.

* Hendu's first minutes all season. Rust, rust, rust... but can you say... OFFENSIVE REBOUND? 3 of them. If he can remain uninjured, we made a good move getting him back out there.

3rd Quarter:

* Typical Hawk fashion. We had decent success going inside in the first half, so we automatically think we are perimeter players. No shots from inside the paint for a good 7 minute stretch.

* 1-19 to end the quarter. (ends up being 1-21 by the time we right the ship) Of course, the worse our shot is... the further out the Hawks want to shoot from. Reef takes three deep jumpers... WHY?

4th Quarter:

* Started to pull it together. We started the quarter slow, but so did the Wizz.

* Terry doesn't know how to handle full court pressure.

* Even worse than Terry is STEPHEN JACKSON! Can someone explain WHY he is in the back court helping to bring the ball up? Where's Vaughn, Diaw, Glover, Reef, Theo? ANYONE other than sure-shot Jackson. Two straight TOs by Larry Bird... errr... Stephen Jackson.

* Realized that Stotts REALLY doesn't understand his players. He leaves Jackson to bring the ball up repeatedly and still has Diaw inbounds the ball. Can someone explain to him that this is not either player's strong suits?

* Finally pull it out and Reef hits some clutch turnarounds. I am still jacked up about a BS offensive foul call on Reef. I've Tivo'ed the heck out of it and still can't see one.

Player of the game: Without a doubt, Reef.

Dud of the game: I'd say Jackson, but he did make a ton of steals and only one TO. So, this game... I give the "Dud Award" to Dion "Never Met A Shot I Couldn't Miss" Glover.

[Playmaker0017]

Dolf,

I wouldn't go as far as Terry being a better player than Arenas based on tonights game.

This is only Arenas' first game in 14 games. He's a bit rusty, I would think.

Plus, we helped bury them in the first and that led to them pulling their Hawks impression. (For those that don't know, that is when your shots aren't falling so you shoot them faster and less in rythm)

Play.

[Playmaker0017]

By the way... what does "It Deon Figures" mean?

Play.

[KB21]

A couple of things:

1. Hawks had 12 turnovers and force 19 turnovers. That's a big change. Dion had 4 of the turnovers. No one else had more than 2.

2. Hawks held the Wizards to 34% shooting.

3. How does Reef get only 2 free throw attempts? He still got 25 points, but the refs give him absolutely nothing.

[DJ_Money]

Deon Figures...didn't he play at Colorado a few years back?

[Weez]

Sorry Jay - watched the game then had to put up all the XMas decorations before gettin onto the Squawk.

Much has been summed up here. Couple of other things.

JT acutally looked like a PG tonight. Don't know how this happened or if it was a lack of defense that allowed him to do so, but he actually threaded the needle a couple of times, including one really nice pass off the dribble, one handed through defenders that led to any easy score. Another time he ran the break effectively, making the right decisions on who to pass to and when to push it and realizing when plays weren't there. Overall a very solid nigth for him (I haven't looked at the stat sheet yet).

I hate SJax. I mean he keeps jacking threes and jacking them and jacking them.....but d@manit it he didn't get something like five steals tonight. That's te only reason I can see keeping hi on the court...that and who are you going to bring in besides a mini me with Dion at the three (while Diaw continues to lack his spring). If it weren't for his energy and D...Ireally don't know if this comes out even of not. When Diaw's healthy again, bench him. please.

Diaw continues to play well depsite "not having it"

The Hawks actually played pretty well tonight....except for that huge drought ewre nothing fell. that could have gotten very very ugly...except Washington's worse than us at executing/getting out of a bad flow.

[Diesel]

Last night watching the game... and Stotts does what???

3rd Qtr, he lets Washington back into the game by playing:

Nazr/Theo/Diaw/Jax/Vaughn... and

Nazr/Theo/Diaw/JT/Vaughn.

That's why we became a perimeter team. He took out the scorers and put in role players with a jump shooter.

The only reason we didn't lose is because Washington is worse than us. I mean, they found success going to Kwame/Heywood in the post but then Hughes/Arenas/Dixon get in the game and start jacking threes.

Tonight thanks to Reef, we won the percentage game and the game.

The way we started, this game should not have been close.

By the third qtr, all the nifty passing we were doing to start the game was gone.

Again, the sad part is that we have talent. Big Talent. Theo was blocking shots, Reef was playing hard being unstoppable... But Glover does stupid things.... Jax puts up bad shots.

(SiDE NOTE): I think that Kwame Brown is going to blossom soon. I would love to get him and play him at C.

[Diesel]

I will give JT some credit...

He ran the break well tonight. The no look to Reef was awesome. The pass to Jax was pretty good too.

BUT....

I won't say he looked like a PG yet.

He still did some stupid stuff with the ball. For instance, he only got 2 t.os called on him but he travelled with the ball at least 3 times. Also, he still has bad shot selection. Tonight it was going in, but 22 seconds on the shot clock, JT gets the ball off a screen and comes off shooting. He hit the shot, but our offense was nowhere near set. This is what upsets me the most about JT and Jax. They shoot without conscious and without care about what the rest of the team is doing. It's like they have a quota.

Jax defense was interrogating in the first quarter. I honestly thought we would put up 38 in the first qtr the way we were playing. With Jax bothering the ball handler and Theo blocking every shot.... I felt it was over.

About Washington. They have the same problem we do. Arenas is not really a PG. In fact, that team calmed down and played better when Blake came in the game. Blake was able to get the ball to Brown which helped their third qtr run. I will say it again, I think Brown is starting to become a better player. I don't think he will do it with Washington though. He's like Oneal playing in PTL.

[Plainview1981]

Didn't see the game...but I can't get excited over a win againest the Wizards when the team is out of playoff

contention anyway.

[jaywalker72]

Talking with Phil Hubbard before the Wizards game here, it was clear that Phil believed that he and Eddie Jordan were treating Kwame's season this season like it was his rookie season.

Phil's quote about the way Kwame was "handled" by Michael and Doug Collins, "There was some real damage done there, and very little teaching."

Kwame may not be Kareem, ever, but just like you said D, I've always believed his career would be similar to Jermaine's, and it seems as if that is coming to pass. The Hawks whiffed on the Oneal deal (who knows if they were even interested anyway), but if Eddie Jordan ever loses interest in Kwame, we should be there with our equivilant of Dale Davis at that time (whoever that might be) to take advantage.

BTW, great breakdowns of the game...THAT'S what I was hoping to find....perfect.

[macdaddy]

The reason Kwame is exciting to us is that he is young with star potential whereas are guys are just young. Bringing him to Georgia would be a great trade if we could pull it off. I don't see how though.

At least we kept some ball movement last night even when there was a HUGE scoring drought. SJax is a good nba player but he gets too many touches on the offensive end. I wish we could find a way to get rid of Dion and bring in a reliable guard.

[Admin]

Diesel we only have 2 scorers on this team.......SAR and JT. Nobody else on this team is a scorer. After those 2 scorers we have the jackers Jax and Dion and then after them we have the guys who are scared to shoot JV, Hansen, Diaw. After the guys who are scared to shoot we have the pump fake machine Nazr and the rest of the scrubs. So I mean honestly, what do you guys expect Stotts to do? JT and SAR cant play every minute so they have to get rest and when those guys are on the bench this team wont be able to score point blank. Its a sad but true fact. This offseason the team priority must be to add 2-3 more scorers to the team that can come off the bench and give us a lift. Also need a starter for SG.

[Gray Mule]

Dion is a scorer - Well, sorta. He can and does hit SOME

of his jumpers. He is better when he drives inside.

He is powerful enough to do this -- And he hits most of

his free throws when he does this.

Jackson - Great hands on defense, as we saw last night.

can run and dunk with the best of them. This is where he

was scoring last night. He THINKS that he is a 3 point

artist. NOT! He hits some 3's but he misses a lot of

them too. Like Glover, he is an inside scorer.

Henderson -- Rusty as everything. Only played about

four minutes- Grabbed 3 rebounds while he was out there.

We needed that.

Had a run that lasted FOREVER that we couldn't hit a

shot, something like half the third and half the fourth

quarter. Should have quit shooting jumpers and simply

drove to the basket until something happened, We either

score or get a foul. If we spread the floor enough, the

middle will open up some or we will have wide open jumpers

from in close {Which we can't hit} but at least it would

be a change from the long shots we were missing.

Two bad teams met - Hawks was the better of the bad.

We won the game in the first half of the first quarter,

then managed to hold on until it was over. They outplayed

us for 3 1/2 quarters. Hawks exploded to start the game

and they never could overcome that.

[Playmaker0017]

Gray,

I have to disagree.

Dion Glover is NOT an inside scorer. He rarely finishes and when he does it has more to with luck than skill.

He is a good spot up shooter. He should take most of his shots from 8-12 feet - when open. He should slash. He should try to break free. He should rarely try to create on his own (unless our offense changes). He should play well off the ball.

He is at his best when he is playing off of Reef and spotting up for jumpers.

The same goes for Jackson. When Jackson is covered down low he is very ineffective. He spazzes out. He can run the court though.... I can give him that much.

Jackson is a better spot up shooter than inside scorer, even more so than Glover. Glover can at least penetrate occationally. Jackson SHOULD NEVER be allowed to do that.

Play.

[Diesel]

No discipline.

For example, Early in the first, Glover drove the lane and scored on a bueatiful layup and drew the foul. That is more of his game (power guard) than this jacking threes stuff that him and the three horsemen do. The problem is that there is no offensive discipline. We come down and shoot without passing. Three horsemen.

But I will say this about Jax. He puts up bad shots.... But also he has a baseline game that is better than his three point shot. I think we need to reevaluate how we use Jax. I think he should shoot some threes, but at the same time, he shouldn't be the ball handler or secondary ball handler. He needs to model his game after Devan George.... If he can. George puts up his share of three, but mostly, George runs from the top of the triangle to the baseline and finds his shots. I love the stuff that Hill brought to our offense with Reef giving the pick and handoff to Jax....