Official Game Thread: Hornets at Hawks

[GameTime]

12 minutes ago, Sothron said:

Trust me, you are not the only one noticing that Millsap has went from a legit All NBA PF to a guy not playing ANY defense at all. I have to think he's either more hurt with that hip than they are letting on or he's just packing it in for a big pay day.

Or he is just declining from his peak year last year? it is hard to carry the load on offense and defense every year. Millsap had a "Top 10 NBA player in the league season" last year. Hard to keep that up. One thing is for sure he isn't worth the max the next 4 years.

[Sothron]

9 minutes ago, GameTime said:

Or he is just declining from his peak year last year? it is hard to carry the load on offense and defense every year. Millsap had a "Top 10 NBA player in the league season" last year. Hard to keep that up. One thing is for sure he isn't worth the max the next 4 years.

You don't decline that fast in one season. He's either hurt and playing through it or just not giving a damn anymore on defense like Horford did with rebounding last season.

[Trout7]

58 minutes ago, Spursfanpeacemaker said:

Lou williams then now Marvin Williams who's next?

Alice?

[Lurker]

This team needs a backup 5. For all the crying about how much Muscala has sucked lately, Humphries has been a horror show in the minutes he's played this year (with a +/- of under -10, a lot of minuses on this team but that's staggering).. He would not be an improvement. 

I'd cut Muscala and Kelly.

Its not the only problem but its one of them.

Edited December 18, 2016 by Lurker

[High5]

We used to have to wait until the playoffs for Cleveland to nuke us from 3. Now we get to live that nightmare every night of the season. 

[BigDog90]

2 hours ago, Sothron said:

You don't decline that fast in one season. He's either hurt and playing through it or just not giving a damn anymore on defense like Horford did with rebounding last season.

They say it's the scheme. Hawks would rather play the passing lanes, not give up points in the paint and let your stretch big try to beat you from the outside. 

I think Millsap stays if ATL gives him the full 5 year 193 million max. I think he'll end up in Boston for 4 years 143 million if ATL doesn't give him the money. Amir Johnson keeps getting benched in Boston for Jerebko. Both Jerebko and Amir are free agents this upcoming summer.

[Diesel]

There were two big plays where we failed last night.  The whole game can be boiled down to this:

1.  Tie game or maybe we were down 2 in the 4th.. crunch time.  Dennis gets the ball and rushes the basket with one man on him and one man trailing and misses the lay-in.   Dennis wants to be Westbrook but he doesn't pass.  That possession should have been one where we had movement and we took a good shot.  I knew the moment that Dennis got the ball, that he would drive. 

2.  Dennis is getting zippity do dahd by Walker.  Sap comes over to trap.. Walker to Marvin for the wide open 3 pt dagger. IF we're playing trapping defense than somebody was supposed to rotate.   Our defensive rotations have not been there all year.  I think it was Baze or THJr down in the corner that should have rotated and covered that passing lane. 

NBATV did an excellent Job of showing how the Warriors switch on defense.   Now, KD has been a defensive liability for most of his career.  Yet, when they switch and rotates, he looks like a defensive talent.  Our team defense sucks because we got guys out there that don't know what to do. 

Those two plays are indicative of our night.   Too much isoball and too much bad defense.

 

[NBASupes]

9 hours ago, Sothron said:

You don't decline that fast in one season. He's either hurt and playing through it or just not giving a damn anymore on defense like Horford did with rebounding last season.

That's not what Al did last year. We needed him to help up defend space.  Part of the reason we had an elite defense last year. This year, no one is doing that or can and as I told @JayBirdHawk in the offseason, Millsap will struggle having to really defend and not just play the passing lanes and focus on individual match ups.

Millsap looks the same as he always has, he just has more responsibility and isn't cut out for it.

[NBASupes]

10 hours ago, Hotlanta1981 said:

He doesn't run a team or control the pace of game. He just puts up numbers some nights. But he hasn't improved since his second year in the league.

He has vastly improved but his PG skills leaves a lot to be desired. Always has. He has great passing vision with poor passing IQ and constantly misses on reads. He is a work in progress as a PG but he clearly has talent.

[NBASupes]

10 hours ago, Lurker said:

Man defense with a sagging look is all you have to do to beat this team, and it'd be all you have to do with Teague too. Sorry but ole' Jeff is changing jack diddly squat with this team unless he would have put in an MVP performance in the major blowouts. 35 and 10 would've been needed in all of the major blowout games.

With Jeff this team would've been a whopping.....15-12 right now.

While Jeff wasn't the answer for this personnel grouping, it is hard to say Dennis is either. It's time to accept that this team is too limited and we lack that piece that makes this sustainable. We might need to seriously start looking at trades. 

[NBASupes]

11 hours ago, Sothron said:

Dwight only gets 6 shot attempts after putting up 27 and 15 just the previous night is why we lost this game. Oh, he still went 10 and 23 with only 1 turnover but hey, he's so lazy. That should have been FORTY THREE rebounds.

It's hard as shit to get him looks with teams knowing what his scouting report is. We simply lack the players around him for him to be effective on a nightly basis. This is what I was talking about but at least Dwight came to play last night.

[Thomas]

So getting back to the game itself other than winning the rebound battle we certainly didn't look great but the starters minus three or four really bad plays were good enough to win this one. The bench has now been consistently horrible for a good while not counting the Raptor's game. Well at least Baze has looked more like a decent role player the past two.The usual ref issue and a  couple of choked foul shots helped Charlotte as well. Really not much would have had to change for us to win it. But I guess its like Gray says "a loss is a loss is a loss" and especially when its in our own division. Also, Marvin just had to add a little salt to it.

[Trout7]

30 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

While Jeff wasn't the answer for this personnel grouping, it is hard to say Dennis is either. It's time to accept that this team is too limited and we lack that piece that makes this sustainable. We might need to seriously start looking at trades. 

This team doesn't add pieces. LOL>

[marco102]

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

There were two big plays where we failed last night.  The whole game can be boiled down to this:

1.  Tie game or maybe we were down 2 in the 4th.. crunch time.  Dennis gets the ball and rushes the basket with one man on him and one man trailing and misses the lay-in.   Dennis wants to be Westbrook but he doesn't pass.  That possession should have been one where we had movement and we took a good shot.  I knew the moment that Dennis got the ball, that he would drive. 

2.  Dennis is getting zippity do dahd by Walker.  Sap comes over to trap.. Walker to Marvin for the wide open 3 pt dagger. IF we're playing trapping defense than somebody was supposed to rotate.   Our defensive rotations have not been there all year.  I think it was Baze or THJr down in the corner that should have rotated and covered that passing lane. 

NBATV did an excellent Job of showing how the Warriors switch on defense.   Now, KD has been a defensive liability for most of his career.  Yet, when they switch and rotates, he looks like a defensive talent.  Our team defense sucks because we got guys out there that don't know what to do. 

Those two plays are indicative of our night.   Too much isoball and too much bad defense.

 

1.  The player that was supposed to rotate over was Bazemore, but guess who he was guarding? Bellineli!  I wouldn't leave that guy to rotate over to Marvin either.  It was a tough play.

[Lurker]

Sap didn't come over to trap on that Marvin 3, he was going for a steal period. And I thought I was the only person that often half paid attention to games when I even watch.

If he stayed glued, Kemba is shooting a 28 footer as its late in the clock. So the gamble improved the shot. But that's teams playing to the scouting report. Sap is too much of a gambler and will sag even on good three point shooters. And yeah, that's not good. 

Dennis wasn't good but there often won't be ball movement late in games for any team and there wasn't for most of last year with Teague, sorry but this is most likely the truth. In fact I can quote the next to last playoff game as an example. Teague had an awesome 3rd quarter where he racked up 7 or 8 assists alone, and he did not get one assist in the 4th. This team regularly reverts to one on one play or looking to Sap to make a play since last year in the 4th.

[DS17Fanboy]

Zeller is one of these guys you just love to hate. His screens for Kemba are perfect and he gets away with fouls in the post all game long. Though he ended with 5 fouls. He should have been out the game 3rd quarter really. But somehow Dwight gets all the attention. Damn I hate these guys.

And the story of the season just is that it is to easy to score on us. Our team has to dig deep multiple times over to keep on answering and then do it all over again the next game.

Edited December 18, 2016 by DS17Fanboy

[Thomas]

4 hours ago, marco102 said:

but guess who he was guarding? Bellineli!

Belinelli was giving us his best Jeff Hornacek from those Utah days. Making awkward or tough shots. DS17 is definitely right about Zeller finding his role against us as well. Not a player thats easy to like. 

[django2341]

vor 5 Stunden, Diesel sagte:

There were two big plays where we failed last night.  The whole game can be boiled down to this:

1.  Tie game or maybe we were down 2 in the 4th.. crunch time.  Dennis gets the ball and rushes the basket with one man on him and one man trailing and misses the lay-in.   Dennis wants to be Westbrook but he doesn't pass.  That possession should have been one where we had movement and we took a good shot.  I knew the moment that Dennis got the ball, that he would drive. 

2.  Dennis is getting zippity do dahd by Walker.  Sap comes over to trap.. Walker to Marvin for the wide open 3 pt dagger. IF we're playing trapping defense than somebody was supposed to rotate.   Our defensive rotations have not been there all year.  I think it was Baze or THJr down in the corner that should have rotated and covered that passing lane. 

NBATV did an excellent Job of showing how the Warriors switch on defense.   Now, KD has been a defensive liability for most of his career.  Yet, when they switch and rotates, he looks like a defensive talent.  Our team defense sucks because we got guys out there that don't know what to do. 

Those two plays are indicative of our night.   Too much isoball and too much bad defense.

 

I'd say that was totally on Millsap. There was no need to help, trap or go for the steal. It was late clock and Dennis was in front of Kemba.

Another thing I noticed was the Hawks managed to get the ball out of Kembas hands in several clutch possesions which was a good thing. But of course Bellinelli finds his inner Curry right then.

Edited December 18, 2016 by django2341

[lethalweapon3]

Just glad Kemba could play, otherwise it'd been a 40-point loss and the Razor Ramon Sessions Show on SportsCenter.

Props to El Duque! Is he their new Big Shot Bird?

Four parting words for now... "Go Falcons! Rise Up!"

~lw3

[rd79]

Yesterday Dennis' shot was off and he knew it. He passed on some open shots he would have taken and made the games before and I would say you could call it growth in decision making. So he shot 50% despite a bad shooting night.

He looked late in defense sometimes but Kemba got really nice picks... If somebody could set good screens for Dennis...

Bombed again from outside...