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Official Game Thread: Hawks at Thunder


lethalweapon3

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29 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

"clap"

~lw3

Are we trading Cam? I mean wtf? He used to miss games here and there like this at Duke.. Again, can someone tell me when the injury occured? Or has it been reported? We could use his defense on SGA..smh

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24 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Their main guy is SGA. Cut the head off the snake.

And please dont let some random guy look like the MVP of the league(I can only think of 4 players on OKC off the top of my head. lol)...Hawks and Falcons are known for this............

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13 minutes ago, terrell said:

Are we trading Cam? I mean wtf? He used to miss games here and there like this at Duke.. Again, can someone tell me when the injury occured? Or has it been reported? We could use his defense on SGA..smh

No. He has been hurt on and off here for a bit.  At least moved up to doubtful instead of just out?  

Anyway.  Go Hawks!

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We all know that it's every Hawk fan's dream to win two games in a row.  Dare we hope that it happens tonight?  After all, our opponent's record isn't that different from our own.  

We do have players out - - Injured.  Yet, we have some pretty good, not all star good, but pretty good players who are, indeed, available tonight.

Can we please have another helping of what we had when Boston visited !!

GO ATL HAWKS !

👨‍🌾

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2 hours ago, lethalweapon3 said:

Celtics-6037223d7cb41-850x478.jpg

“Alright, who leaked out that our coach voted for Horford and Scary Terry?”

 

The NBA Blender is funny.

Isaiah Thomas had long imagined that he, and a former Atlanta Hawks star, would play as a professional pair in a critical tournament game. As the self-made, former Boston Celtics star sipped on a socially-distanced margarita in San Juan last week, there’s no way he could have imagined, five years ago, that his ex-Hawk co-star would be Joe Johnson.

It was at the All-Star midseason classic, in 2016, when I.T. whispered sweet nothings into Al Horford’s ear. Join me in Boston in the upcoming summer, Thomas confided in the All-Star center’s ear, and we can build a championship squad around us! Jeff Teague isn’t helping you reach the mountaintop. Neither is Jeff’s backup, Dennis Schröder. But, says Thomas, I’m the tank engine you need to get where you want to go. You. Me. Maybe, KD… Banner #18!

“I wrapped him up,” Isaiah boasted of Horford’s free agent deal, confirming he broke the ice during the preceding All-Star break about prying free the four-time All-Star and aligning him on Team Green. “I knew he was coming to Boston, for sure.”

“Man the things he was doing to us in the Playoffs,” Thomas told Bleacher Report in the offseason after being ousted by the upstart Schröder and the Hawks, while conveying the age-old sentiment that if you can’t beat them, get them to join you. “I’m looking forward to him doing that for us.” Word to Tito!

A half-decade later, Thomas is representing Team USA. But not in Tokyo. No, he was in Puerto Rico last week with Joe Jeezus and Hawks one-timers Jordan Sibert and James Nunnally, aiding the Americans in locking down a qualifying spot in next year’s FIBA AmeriCup. Joe and Isaiah combined for 20 points, nine rebounds and three assists to keep Gustavo Ayon’s Mexico squad at bay in the finale and help USA finish at 6-0 in group play.

The Dominican Republic, fortunately, didn’t need Horford’s help to go 4-1 and qualify for AmeriCup, too. Unlike Isaiah, Al is busy in the NBA, but not on the Celtics team he joined when he abandoned Atlanta for a four-year, $113 million deal. He declined the final year of that deal, and surprised Boston by signing with a division rival in 2019. But he’s not there, either.

Instead, Alfredo is employed in the state that brought you Trae Young. Thomas, meanwhile, gets to watch his replacement with the Celtics (no, not you, Jeff) pairing up in the NBA East with the star of 2012 classic movie “Thunderstruck”, Kevin Durant, only on yet another Atlantic Division team.

I.T. was showing out in the Caribbean in hopes an NBA club paying attention will toss him a raft ahead of the playoffs. In the meantime, he and the ex-Hawks are helping USA lock down a reservation for Olympics 2024 so that folks like Trae won’t have to do so years from now. Thanks for your service, Isaiah.

Tonight, Young returns to his schoolboy state to face Horford, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder (8 PM Eastern, Fox Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, Fox Sports Oklahoma), a club that has been very, very good to Hawks past and present. Dennis made a name for himself playing with Russell Westbrook and Paul George and, later, Chris Paul, before being sought out and acquired by LeBrongeles.  Now, it’s Al’s turn to use his play and veteran leadership as a springboard for a timely trade back into championship contention. So far, so good!

Late in Wednesday’s back-and-forth with the visiting Spurs, Lu Dort found himself in a shootout with Patty Mills. Normally, for a fellow known more for his defensive skills than his sharp-shooting, a second-year pro that was shooting 31.7 3FG%, it’s Advantage, The Other Guy. But San Antonio was hounding Gilgeous-Alexander (11 1st-quarter and 21 3rd-quarter points, career-high 42 points vs. SAS) defensively, daring somebody else to beat them. And Horford kept right on feeding Dort, who, I can only presume, Al thinks has a surname pronounced “Dart.”

Lu lived up to Al’s trust (or, misperception) by bulls-eyeing all of his final three treys in the closing four minutes of action. Horford, who also splashed a fourth-quarter three and one of his mid-rangers to keep OKC in the running, assisted on two of Dort’s three-pointers, the final one off a kickout with under three seconds left to play to avoid overtime and secure the 102-99 victory.

For rookie coach Mark Daigneault and the Thunder (13-19), they avoided losing their fifth in six games. Their prior victory was a resounding win in Cleveland this past Sunday, but let’s not mention the Cavs again, shall we? While they’ve gone 5-10 since going 8-9 to start the season, OKC showed no love while beating Giannis and Milwaukee on Valentine’s Day here at Chesapeake Energy Arena. They accomplished the win without the services of SGA (career-highs of 23.5 PPG, 6.4 APG, 55.8 2FG%, 41.9 3FG%), who has since returned nicely after missing time with a sprained knee.

Nikola Jokic and Denver arrives in Okietown tomorrow. Seeing how well a certain team fared without Andre Drummond in the middle recently, Daigneault is saving Horford (out, rest) for Saturday. A former Hawk and Horford backup, Mike Muscala, is now the most experienced Thunder player active tonight, with Trevor Ariza (personal leave, out indefinitely) and George Hill (thumb surgery) unavailable.

Also missing honey-dip dunker Hamidou Diallo (sore groin), Daigneault will throw Dort, SGA, Dariuses Bazley and Miller, rookie Theo Maledon, and whatever’s left in the kitchen sink to encourage Young to give up the ball and not get in back during Atlanta’s possessions.

The pride of Norman North High had a rough outing in his last trip to this NBA floor, in January of last year. Despite 26 points, 16 assists and just one turnover by Trae, and solid production from John Collins and Cam Reddish (questionable for today, sore Achilles), discombobulated defense and a lack of creative offense made things easier on CP3 (18 points), Dennis (21 bench points) and SGA (24 points) to win the day over coach Lloyd Pierce’s visitors, 140-111. None of those guys, one must note, were the leading scorer for OKC on that wintry day.

Young will greatly welcome Danilo Gallinari (OKC-high 25 points, 4-for-6 3FGs vs. ATL in January 2020) averaging a team-record ten threes per game for the Hawks going forward, but hopefully that record-smashing production (38 points vs. BOS, most for Gallo since he was a Nugget in 2015) won’t be necessary to win on most nights.

Inspired perhaps by Horford’s lead, plundering the Thunder tonight will require inside-oriented ball movement by Atlanta (14-18). The Hawks are 5-12 when Collins produces just one assist or fewer, and they’re 4-1 when Clint Capela cranks out two dimes or more. Swift decisions to either post-up or kick-out and crash the glass can grind the Thunder’s interior defense (17.6 opponent points per-48, 24th in NBA with Horford) into submission.

On what is now (no longer “that other team from Ohio”) the league’s least efficient offense (NBA-lows of 104.6 O-Rating and 21.6 O-Reb%), Al’s absence should allow the Hawks’ frontline to shine at both ends while pressuring Isaiah Roby and Muscala into foul trouble. Even Gallo (career-low 39.1 2FG%) can get into the act with his height advantages, throwing the Thunder’s defensive game plan off-balance.

Countering OKC’s defensive pressure on the point-of-attack will also require Tony! ToniTonéSnell (4-for-6 3FGs, helping the Hawks make a team-record 23 triples in the 127-112 win over Boston) to do it again. It feels good, too, if Kevin Huerter and Reddish, if available, can connect on what should be a bunch of open perimeter looks, and if Young can move off-ball to keep eyes on him.

Horford, averaging his highest scoring average (14.6 PPG) since biding adieu to The ATL, has been putting on a good face, and the PR machine to max up his veteran value is running at full bore. “Philosophically, he just believes in team basketball, and he’s walked that walk for a long time,” Daigneault told The Oklahoman, who grants his big man a career-high 5.6 3FGAs per game (only Dort, the Thunder’s version of Marcus Smart, shoots more) in return for making his own job so much easier. “He’s just a flat-out winner.”

But the anxiety is rising for Horford, who faces more than just sitting out the postseason for the first time since tearing pec #2 with the Hawks in 2013-14. He’s locked into his current contract, owed as much as $81 million over this and the next two seasons (2022-23 is non-guaranteed, but team exec Sam Presti might see that as reason to keep him around).

Horf sees Nate McMillan, “Mister Sonic” who went on to coach Seattle, and Pierce’s top assistant must bring to mind a former Sonics rookie of McMillan’s, Nick Collison, who moved to the Sooner State with the franchise and never left until it was time to retire. Al wants no part of that fate. With the trade deadline mere weeks away, and OKC not in the running as a postseason threat anytime soon, Horford has no intention of becoming, “Mr. Thunder, Jr.”

With GMs putting third-tier players on the waiver wire in hopes of making cap room for incoming veterans, Horford, and his exiled buddy Thomas, want to be among contenders’ final ingredients. They’ll need guys like Presti who are willing to press “Purée” on the presto-change-o machine.

Relax, Al! Here, come sit by your old friend Moose. Do you like piña coladas?

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

 

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