Official Game Thread: Hawks at Pistons

[lethalweapon3]

“You’d better be glad I brought my Get Back Coach with me. Weiss! Do your magic and make this ref fool disappear!”

 

“I speak for the entire organization when I say that we are excited to have Dwane on board as a member of the Wolves. We are looking forward to watching him lead our team.”

Turned out, Glen Taylor wasn’t looking far enough forward. The Timberwolves owner’s patience, and excitement, ran out quick.

Dwane Casey coached a wretched team built around a sour Kevin Garnett to a 33-49 record, in his first year, then he went 20-20 midway through the second. Yet that nominal improvement wasn’t up to Taylor’s grand expectations. A four-game skid that began with a bad home loss to Joe Johnson’s Atlanta Hawks dropped the Wolves back to .500. It’s why Taylor elevated the prior coach Casey replaced, Kevin McHale, to team president, and replaced Casey in midseason with Randy Wittman. Randy. Wittman!

The 20-20 T’Wolves completely lost their vision, finishing 32-50 under Wittman (4-15 the season after that, whereby McHale came downstairs to upheave Randy and snatch his old job back), and Taylor never got to see his Wolves get on the good foot since. That is, aside from that one season under Tom Thibodeau, where the team squeaked into the playoffs at the last minute and the Atlanta Hawks stole away their first-round draft pick, keeping them from reeling in yet another Kevin. But enough about Adreian Payne.

Heeding years of local pleas, Taylor finally waved the white flag this month, agreeing to slowly release his ironclad grip on Minnesota’s NBA and WNBA franchises to a group led, interestingly enough, by a retired athlete once endeared by the good people of Seattle, King County, Washington. News of the transaction got the baristas in the Emerald City percolating: “Could we finally be getting our dear old Sonics back?”

Casey had been born to coach, originally asked to coach up a Little League team filled with players three years his junior. The young guard basically retired after winning a NCAA title with blue-blood Kentucky, quickly became an assistant with Western Kentucky, then with his alma mater, before finding his way into the NBA with the Supersonics in the 1990s.

As an assistant, Dwane coached up the man who would come to be known as “Mr. Sonic.” By the time Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz bought the team, in 2001, the recently retired player Nate McMillan had elevated Casey to be his lead assistant. The Sonics were no longer perennial championship contenders, but they were on the rise by the summer of 2005, when Seattle lost a tough second-round series to the goody-two-shoes Spurs. It looked like a natural ascension for Casey when he accepted the job in Minneapolis. But did Dwane sense something slick in Seatown was afoot?

“That’s not a dream PR scenario for us,” said Wally Walker, wannabe team owner who settled as team CEO, after McMillan shocked everyone, mere weeks after Casey’s hire, when he let his contract expire, declined a decent extension offer, and signed a similar deal with Seattle’s despised regional rivals in Portland, joining ranks with Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner Paul Allen. Coming off a 52-30 season, this was perhaps the beginning of many bad-dream PR scenarios for Sonics, Inc.

“It wasn’t the money,” the 40-year-old McMillan shared after his stunning hire. “I thought Seattle offered fair money.” Seattle also, the day before, signed franchise star Ray Allen to a five-year, $85 million contract extension. Not enough to budge Nate. “This was the time for me to move on,” the AP reported McMillan explaining. “I needed a different challenge, a different opportunity.” The challenge? Getting the notorious JailBlazers out of jail, sternly yanking players back in-line after they ran roughshod for years over poor Mo Cheeks.

2021, and 2005, weren’t the only times Nate Mac was begged to clean up somebody else’s mess. Paul Westphal got the heave-ho after a floundering 6-9 start by the Sonics in 2000-01, and “interim coach” McMillan guided his team to a 38-29 finish, then a return to the playoffs the following year. They wouldn’t return to the postseason until 2005, but McMillan wasn’t going to wait to see whether Allen, or even Schultz, was going to stick around through his next contract.

I theorize these two coaches, McMillan and Casey, woke up and smelled the coffee before most anyone else could. They saw the impasse over the KeyArena renovations, as citizens and politicos alike repeatedly ordered Schultz to go pound some eroding sand. They likely saw Schultz getting soft as cappuccino foam, and big-money sharks from odd places like Vegas, Missouri, and Oklahoma circling around Puget Sound. “Mr. Sonic”, in particular, wasn’t eager to be the guy tasked with turning the last light out on his way out of the town that embraced him.

Back in 2005, these two coaches likely never imagined they’d be planting their flags anywhere beyond the NBA’s newly formed Northwest Division. Now clear members of the old-skool coaching fraternity, they find themselves meeting for, maybe, not the last time as the head coaches of the Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons (7 PM Eastern, Bally Sports Southeast and 92.9 FM in ATL, BS Detroit. Why is this not 8 PM?). And it’s truly a credit to them both.

The Pistons are doing a masterful tank job, at least on the court, thanks to Casey. They’re 18-43, fending off the free-falling Magic for the bottom spot in the NBA East. But even if they lose tonight to the Hawks here at Little Caesars Arena, Detroit hasn’t dropped more than four games in a row all season long. And they’re hanging around in games longer than most expect. 27 of their 43 defeats have been by a margin of ten points or less, games versus New York and at Washington, both red-hot teams, the only losses by more than 15 points this month.

Under first-year GM Troy Weaver, fresh from the Sonics’ second home in OKC, Detroit swiftly awakened from the pipe dream of reinvigorating Blake Griffin and Derrick Rose into some sort of playoff contention. They’re letting Killian Hayes, the Lotto point guard back from his early season-injury, cut his teeth while allowing Cory Joseph, a veteran flipped by Sacramento with some second-round picks for Delon Wright, to grab the starter reins for the rest of the season.

Weaver’s offseason was hit-and-miss. The expiring contract of Tony Snell was the price for taking a four-day flyer with contract-stretched former Hawks center Dewayne Dedmon (they sure love stretching ex-Hawks up there). While this year’s first-round pick is heavily protected, ceding first-round conveyance rights over the next seven seasons is a high risk attached to the sign-and-trade of Christian Wood to Houston for, essentially, rookie big Isaiah Stewart.

Literally hit-or-miss is Saddiq Bey, the rookie wing who Weaver gained by dealing Luke Kennard out in a multi-team trade. Bey went 2-for-14 from the field, including bagel-for-6 on threes, during Saturday’s loss in Indiana. But he also sunk six of 11 attempts at triples as Detroit, in their most recent victory, soured the Cavaliers’ fading Play-In hopes last Monday.

Offseason acquisitions Jerami Grant and Mason Plumlee (career-high 21 rebounds, 17 points, 5 assists @ IND on Saturday) have reveled in their roles as the Pistons build up from the ground floor. Remember when the Hawks’ OT win over Detroit was the most thrilling win of the season? Grant (32 points @ ATL on Jan. 20) bowling over Trae Young and getting whistled for the charge, after blowing past John Collins for the would-be-game-winning layup attempt in regulation, may have prolonged McMillan’s assistant coaching tenure in Atlanta by a few weeks.

The Hawks win in Brooklyn! The Hawks come home and lose the next night to Cleveland. The Hawks paste the Nuggets! The Hawks go to Cleveland, two nights later, and blow it. The Hawks blast Boston! The Hawks fly to OKC, two days later, and catch another big L. Atlanta, who nearly let all the air out of the MLK Day balloon by losing at home two days later to the Pistons, have matured under McMillan’s watch (20-7 since March 1), and it’s a good test on short rest to see how the Hawks (34-27; lost last two SEGABABAs) will perform after last night’s sweet sugar high.

McMillan’s former team survived Detroit on Saturday, prevailing 115-109 on three days’ rest. But the Pacers, absent both Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner, were cleaned clear off the boards 62-39 despite both squads shooting poorly. Clint Capela, Solomon Hill (career-high 12 rebounds vs. MIL last night), and Collins held Milwaukee to a pair of O-Rebs in each half, and the Greek Freak to none on Sunday. The rebounding edge Plumlee and Detroit enjoyed on Saturday should be, at the very least, narrowed significantly tonight. Atlanta out-boarded Detroit 63-42 (23-7 offensive) back in January.

What made the difference for Indy versus the Pistons’ upstarts was turnover margin (18-4 in IND’s favor). Atlanta will rely on Point Bogi, Sweet Lou and Brandon B. Good to keep the sloppiness down (9 player TOs vs. MIL, incl. 3 very forgivable TOs by Lou as the Bucks were scrambling), and the transition defense up. As for forcing timely turnovers… KRIS DUNN PROBABLE ALERT!

Weaver’s best moves still lie ahead of him. He has been able to remake the roster around a futuristic foundation of Grant, Bey, Stewart, and Hayes (where have you gone, Sekou Doumbouya?). But unlike his old boss, he has been unable to stockpile the first-rounder assets that could help Detroit break out of its abyss anytime soon. After this season ends in a few weeks, will one of those moves involve his lame-duck head coach?

“I absolutely believe and trust that we have the best coach in the world for what we’re going through,” Weaver said to WXYZ-TV after the All-Star Break of Casey. “They often say that a team takes on the personality of a coach, and that has absolutely happened.” What, precisely, is Motown “going through”, you ask of Mr. Weaver? Shade Warning, Hawks and Wolves fans!

“You can only restore something that’s great. There’s been greatness in Detroit, three championships and that’s what I wanted here. No slight to the Timberwolves, they can’t restore, they don’t have three championships, they don’t have the greatness. The Atlanta Hawks can’t restore.” Look here, pal, Imma let you finish but, unlike Minny, I’ve got a barely-tarnished punch bowl from 1958 that says otherwise, so keep OUR name out yo’ filthy mouf!

“But the Detroit Pistons can restore.” Sure, Jan. Still, is Casey, under contract for two more seasons, part of the full restoration to championship prominence here? Or is he just another somebody you’re “going through?”

Casey has been screw-jobbed at many of his pitstops. He resigned at UK and put on probation by the NCAA after being wrongfully fingered for money getting delivered in an envelope to one of the school’s highly-sought recruits (it’s always the assistants, never the heads). The T’Wolves refused to accept mediocrity under his watch, and they’ve lived in the Lottery (almost) every season since. He never got to see how far he could go with a Raptors club guided by a prime Kawhi Leonard instead of a milquetoast DeMar DeRozan, although accepting 2018’s NBA Coach of the Year award after being fired was a quaint parting gift.

“Sarge” McMillan turning around the Blazers’ morass took four long years, but after three straight first-round exits and a 20-23 start to 2011-12, no one was trying to hear about the setback of losing Brandon Roy to a catastrophic injury. Portland stayed true to Terry Stotts after he went 33-49 the next season, even after losing 13 games in a row to end the year despite having LaMarcus Aldridge and a plum rookie named Damian Lillard. Losers of five straight and a shaky Play-In candidate as of April 2021, Portland hasn’t shoved Stotts out the door yet.

Meanwhile, Tony Ressler is sweating to knock that “interim” label off McMillan after he has clearly ServPro’d yet another NBA roster, made evident once more following last night’s resounding 111-104 win over Mike Budenholzer’s Bucks. But Nate remembers how fervently he declined appeals to be extended in Indy last season, then relented in the final week of the regular season, only to be cut loose a couple weeks later because his Sabonis-less squad couldn’t hold a candle to the Miami heat in the first round.

NBA owners drop coaches like a bad habit the minute they catch a glimpse of something newfangled and shiny, or guys with a gift for gab that fill up newspaper columns and keep talking heads talking on talk shows. Rising under the tutelage of older-skool guys from Joe B. Hall, to Pete “Big Man Camp” Newell, to George Karl, McMillan and Casey don’t fit the molds of what we like to think, in the pace-and-space age, is conducive to winning basketball, and until one or the other somehow show up with a team in The Finals, that narrow view will hold.

But I surmise that McMillan is going to stay hard-and-fast to his mantra of not negotiating contracts with front offices, anymore, until a season is done-done. Further, when this one ends, two of the burning questions in his mind will not be about money.

It will be about whether he and Casey can get together once more, in Atlanta, or elsewhere. McMillan will need to feel assured that Ressler is thinking far enough ahead, and not just excited about the moment at hand.

It will also be about, in a town where James Donaldson is a serious candidate for mayor this year, whether the NBA owners are genuinely disinterested in getting the NHL Kraken an expansion sibling sometime soon. It’s a ring they’d love to throw their coaching hats into.

It’s a coffee-roasting town. But when it comes to Seattle, and their careers, McMillan and Casey have gotten good at reading the tea leaves. Having suffered through decades of hard luck, the time may have finally arrived where, people realize, these coaches deserve to play a little hardball.

 

Let’s Go Hawks!

~lw3

[kg01]

All I keep thinking is ....

[lethalweapon3]

Just adding to the Stupid JC Fanthirst Photoshop collector's set (this one with a twin, no less). Gotta catch 'em all!

https://clutchpoints.com/2-best-trade-destinations-for-john-collins/

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

All I keep thinking is ....

I said yesterday if they lose this game, all the goodwill from beating the Heat then the Bucks will be ZERO!

[lethalweapon3]

Former 76er Jerami Grant concurs with his Pistons boss... don't call it a Process! (he hasn't been here for years.)

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nba/pistons/2021/04/25/jerami-grant-detroit-pistons-rebuild-sixers-the-process/7373263002/

Quote

“Nah, it’s not the same,” Grant said. “It’s a lot different. It’s not a rebuild, as Troy always says. It’s not three or four years into the future. We’re looking forward to doing something big next year. So no, it doesn’t have the same feeling as there.”

When Detroit does it big, they do it really BIG.

https://www.nba.com/hawks/video/channels/nba_tv/2013/02/12/josh-smith-promo.nba

On a smaller and more immediate scale tonight, the Pistons have turned two-way contractor and veteran guard Frank Jackson into an off-ball bench scorer, and he's been their most reliable lately (last 6 games: 13.8 PPG, 51.7 FG%, 42.4 3FG%), rivaling occasional Hawks Killer Wayne Ellington.

 

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

There's one Josh that might not play for the Pistons.

~lw3

[Gray Mule]

Hawks.  Be very, very careful tonight.

 Pistons will be delighted to rain on your parade.  As they struggle to find bottom. Atlanta hopes that the Hawks can continue.  Suns come to NY tonight.  With a Sun's victory and a Hawk victory, we trade places in the standings.  Is this hoping too much?

[Spud2nique]

Good god lw3, I usually quote some things but too much to quote here. I didn’t think you could elevate your game but you are giving us game threads on par with how the Hawks are playing.  
 

Serious question, do you have the entire story planned in your head or is it an instinct type writing ✍ game like basketball is played. 

Nothing left to say but...

GO HAWKS!!!

[bleachkit]

Even though their record isnt great, they do have some wins against the NBA's best. 

[lethalweapon3]

5 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

Good god lw3, I usually quote some things but too much to quote here. I didn’t think you could elevate your game but you are giving us game threads on par with how the Hawks are playing.  
 

Serious question, do you have the entire story planned in your head or is it an instinct type writing ✍ game like basketball is played. 

Nothing left to say but...

GO HAWKS!!!

Most of the time it just falls out onto the page, after a spark of recent news (Wolves sale sparking Sonics talk) or a historical connection of some type (in this case, Casey and Yung Nate in SEA, and the timing when they left) catches my eye. Last night my draft was like, "Sure hope they win! Go Hawks!"

 

~lw3

[JayBirdHawk]

Sigh!

 

Time for Dunn to earn some minutes.

[Spud2nique]

12 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

Most of the time it just falls out onto the page, after a spark of recent news (Wolves sale sparking Sonics talk) or a historical connection of some type (in this case, Casey and Yung Nate in SEA, and the timing when they left) catches my eye. Last night my draft was like, "Sure hope they win! Go Hawks!"

 

~lw3

I’m gonna politely ask and I’ll understand if it’s a no, may I borrow your brain for a bit? Like a couple months thats it I swear. Great stuff guy, seriously.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[High5]

3 hours ago, kg01 said:

All I keep thinking is ....

It’s a good time to get Dunn back if he does indeed play. His presence should provide a spark even if he doesn’t do a whole lot tonight.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

As long as the Hawks players don't overlook them - we good!

[lethalweapon3]

Sorry, Motown, looks like it'll have to be The Jackson Four.

Downgraded to out, Josh Jackson (illness) had 27 points on 11-for-19 shooting when these teams last faced in Atlanta.

No kidding, but his season-high came on April 1 in a rare loss this month for the (Beal-less) Wizards.

~lw3

[kg01]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Sigh!

 

Time for Dunn to earn some minutes.

Sonofa!!!

This is such a trap game!  Be professional, Hawks.

[BrazilianHawk]

LET'S GO HAWKS!!!

(carefully)

[Thomas]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

Holly sheep stuff. At long, long last.

[Marvin24Williams]

Dunn's debut is finally upon us. Not expecting a lot on offense due to rust, but it'd be nice to see some great D today