Official Game Thread: Hawks at Grizzlies

[gurpilo]

Is going to be a tough matchup for us, we lack bodies, height and weight at frontcourt. With Capela injured is more critical to have a backup C. I would rather have Dedmon, O' Quinn or Mahinmi than Solomon Hill that is redundant with Snell. With another big body I would be more optimistic. At the end everything starts and finish on Trae, if he has a good game, even a standard one, we have good chances to win but I am really concerned with the matchup against Morant.

[bleachkit]

22 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

"Doesn't know a timeline". That's not very reassuring.

[gurpilo]

Capela is a good C but probably he will not play more than 55 games, that is the reason of his contract, we need to have a plan B

[hawkman]

21 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

He's not very quick, but he's tall and can shoot lights out, so no biggie.

Exactly. He's not really doing much running or jumping anyway. He needs to soak that foot in Epsom salt and suit up. 

[gurpilo]

Gallinari is not playing, we are in deep trouble without him and Capela. 

[sturt]

 

[ATLHawks3]

Bruno we need you.

[sturt]

Bruno, take advantage of this opportunity tonight, my man, to break out and show why some projected you as high as top 12 in 2019 draft. Excited to see you assert yourself.

 

[GameTime]

26 minutes ago, gurpilo said:

Capela is a good C but probably he will not play more than 55 games, that is the reason of his contract, we need to have a plan B

Which makes the Okongwu pick make more sense. Hate to see all these injuries so early in the season. This is why we need to keep Collins.

[lethalweapon3]

“Way to stick your neck out!”

I have long said, when it comes to the lackluster reception the Hawks have had around town, is that perhaps their biggest failing as a professional franchise was not arriving in Atlanta first.

“crowd feels like im at a hawks game,” pot-shotted the decidedly unathletic Jared Weiss of The Athletic, the Celtics staff writer last week sharing the non-sights and non-sounds at his dear Garden ahead of a fan-free preseason game.

Like many Buckhead mallgoers, Hawks fans are used to dodging occasional strays. That Atlanta stacked their remodeled hoops arena at a 95.0 percent clip last season, drawing 700 more fans per game than the prior season, matters not in towns glittered with decades of glorious basketball history and tradition.

Had the wisecracking Weiss dared to be a little more up on his current events, he might have suggested, “grizzlies game”, instead. Memphis drew fans at 86.2 percent capacity, a proportion that sunk after the We Believe/Grit ‘n Grind Era uttered its last hurrah, in 2017 (down from 95.6 percent in 2015), and has stagnated ever since.

Despite the benefit of getting to watch Rookie of the Year Ja Morant (44 points in his season debut, 18 in the 4^th quarter) try to vault his team, and himself, over star-studded teams in a competitively superior NBA conference, more Memphians elected to stay home, a couple hundred fewer fans in FedExForum than in Atlanta’s supposedly sterile, stodgy mausoleum.

To me, that’s weird. The Grizzlies were not the first pro game in town, not when one accounts for the old ABA Tams/Sounds of the 70s, Reggie White’s USFL Showboats in the 80s, or the Tennessee Oilers rental at the Liberty Bowl in the mid-90s. But those guys are all gone now, and the Grizzlies have long been the only major-league ticket in town. Yet they still fail to pack the house.

From the days when Jerry Lawler graced the cover of the Commercial Appeal sports section (it’s still real to me, too), Mid-South sports options have come a long way. Memphis did build up its basketball-fan legion through its collegiate basketball powerhouse in the 70s. But it’s not as if fans were passing up the Grizzlies last year to follow Coach Penny’s parade of compensated collegiate one-and-doners. It’s not as though making sight lines work inside a pyramid (now a Bass Pro Shop, somehow) is a problem anymore.

Atlanta went all-in on the Bravos and, for as long as they could stomach them, the Falcons when they made their debuts in the 60s. Generationally, locals’ hearts, if not their fannies, stayed loyal with these teams through thin and thinner. The Hawks just found themselves late to the party. Major League Fever had already subsided, and the excuses we produced for not sharing the same love were many.

“I just don’t feel safe downtown!”, one Bravos fan would say, while parking in an island of cars in Summerhill. “Nobody wants to watch sports indoors in Georgia, just because it’s getting cold!”, says the Falcons fan on his way to cheer on Deion in the Dome. The civic-minded “Back the home team, Atlanta, just because!” push didn’t extend much beyond baseball and football. But at least Atlanta sports fans have major-league choices.

I suppose for the fans of the Grizzlies, who get to host the Hawks today for real (5 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL and MEM, NBATV elsewhere) after tail-whooping them for the better part of dress rehearsals last week, the excuse is they’re just waiting it out until a new, cohesive, full team takes shape.

Pau Gasol is likely to be a Hall of Fame despite his era holding up the Grizzlies largely by his lonesome. But he alone, on a persistently subpar team, wasn’t enough to pack the house on most nights. Morant, individually, is beloved enough to have his own Ja-Raffe at the Memphis Zoo. But when that town gets true Grizzlies Fever, the team goes at least six-deep at wins in big ways, while heart-and-soul tertiary players like Tony Allen become the ambassadors for the international airport.

Morant is here, after all, because the management from the days before Zach Kleiman took over preferred Jaren Jackson, Jr. over Trae Young and Luka Doncic. Triple-J was supposed to be an ideal complementary piece to facilitate keeping Grindhouse-era star guard Mike Conley around until retirement.  But while Jackson’s out, yet again, indefinitely with a knee injured during the team’s Orlando Bubble trip, who’s the secondary piece that helps head coach Taylor Jenkins take pressure off Morant?

Although he seems to think so, it probably shouldn’t be Dillon Brooks (51.0 TS%, lowest among NBA players last season w/ 2000+ minutes). The second-rounder-made-good acquisition from the 2017 Draft has the will (25.2 Usage% in 2019-20, second only to Morant’s 25.9% among MEM players), but a bit of a Bazemorean way.

Brooks was active in 33 minutes against the Spurs in Memphis’ season debut, but more often to the team’s detriment (minus-10, highest among starters) in a defensively deflating 131-119 home loss. Jenkins will need to turn more to Brandon Clarke to tighten up the defensive impact in his rotations.

Danilo Gallinari (contused foot) adds to the thinning frontcourt options for Lloyd Pierce’s club, coming off a gang-busters opening run by the Hawks (1-0) in Chicago. But there remain plenty of reliable young options to pair with Trae Young. Power Forward Supreme De’Andre Hunter (plus-40 @ CHI on Wednesday) has earned ample floor time, while Solomon Hill and Bruno Fernando are adequate backups for Hunter and John Collins.

Memphis, meanwhile, is proceeding without not only Jackson and Justise Winslow at forward, but Jontay Porter and Xavier Tillman upfront, requiring heavy minutes for Gorgui Dieng to spell Kyle “Slo-Mo” Anderson and Jonas Valanciunas.

JV spent a lot of time on Wednesday watching LaMarcus Aldridge plop jumpers over his head, and both Collins and Hunter can make things simpler for Young, Cam Reddish and Atlanta’s attacking wings by hitting open jumpers and keeping Valanciunas stuck in a defensive No-Man’s Land.

Trae (NBA-record-efficient 37 points w/ just 12 FGAs, in 124-104 win @ CHI) won’t be as blessed as he was being guarded by a clueless Coby White today. But he’ll find daylight if Kevin Huerter, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Reddish and Hunter can overwhelm Morant and make Memphis look like they’re trippin’ by pestering Young with Grayson Allen.

Shortly after trading away glue-guy Jae Crowder and the bubble-wrapped Andre Iguodala for Winslow at 2020’s Trade Deadline, the Grizzlies began their freefall; 4-7 between the All-Star Break and the season suspension, 2-6 in the Bubble as they fell out of the playoffs. In March, they only had teams like the Hawks as branches to cling to on their way down the standings.

Hopefully, by the time we can pack arenas again, the Grizzlies can provide Morant better complements to build a truly competitive team in the West. Not that it should matter. In “normal-ish” times, a Grizzlies ticket should be as easy a sell to locals as some gaudy polyester jacket to an Elvis fan at a tourist trap.

 

Smashville Strong! Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[marco102]

@NBASupes looks like the coach sees things your way.

Core 5 starting.

Trae

Kevin

Cam

DeAndre

Collins

The good thing is having Rondo and Bogi on the bench.  That's a luxury the Hawks didn't have last year.  I didn't think we'd have to dig this deep at the beginning of the season.  Really hoping Bruno steps up.

Edited December 26, 2020 by marco102

[sturt]

 

[marco102]

1 minute ago, sturt said:

 

Hmm, Foxsports pregame had Kevin over Bogi.  I'll trust Chris though.

[JayBirdHawk]

4 minutes ago, marco102 said:

@NBASupes looks like the coach sees things your way.

Core 5 starting.

Trae

Kevin

Cam

DeAndre

Collins

The good thing is having Rondo and Bogi on the bench.  That's a luxury the Hawks didn't have last year.  I didn't think we'd have to dig this deep at the beginning of the season.  Really hoping Bruno steps up.

I called for the core 5 last game, thought that would be the call, but Gallo got the start.

[terrell]

Lets go!!

[capstone21]

52 minutes ago, marco102 said:

I believe NBAtv comes with League pass, unless you didn't pick that option.  Also, it'll still be blacked out in the Atl market.

I can watch it three hours later ... I get the choose one team option.

[terrell]

Starters

Trae/Bogi/Cam/Hunter/Collins.

 

 

[Sothron]

I am now officially concerned about Capela. He looked fine to me in the pre season and now he's missed our first two real games for "soreness". Yeah...no. There's something fishy about that.

[gurpilo]

hace 22 minutos, GameTime dijo:

Which makes the Okongwu pick make more sense. Hate to see all these injuries so early in the season. This is why we need to keep Collins.

Okongwu is a rookie, cannot be plan B if you want to win, unless they have seen something really amazing on him but cannot count on the kid as the only backup plan. Wing rotation is more established, get some help at C, makes morr sense than Hill.

[MaceCase]

9 minutes ago, Sothron said:

I am now officially concerned about Capela. He looked fine to me in the pre season and now he's missed our first two real games for "soreness". Yeah...no. There's something fishy about that.

Tiago Sp....naw, let me stop playing....like for real, Universe, I was just PLAYING!