Official Game Thread: Hawks at Pelicans

[Final_quest]

8 hours ago, Sothron said:

2-3 on a WC road trip where we should have went 3-2. Oh well. 

Trae with 16 assists is great. Trae going 4/13 shooting? Almost impossible to make up in the game.

Yes and Hunter played like he was threatened by the mafia to make sure NO covers the spread.  

[Gray Mule]

Before last night's game, "We will discover how good we are when 100% healthy."

Unfortuntally, we found out.  We are not really as good as most of us had hoped.  Every starter had a (-) and our four bench players had a (+).  Hunter had a terrible shooting night.  Young had a terrible shooting night.

It's a fact.  If our shots are not falling, we can't win.  The entire team is not good enough to win if they can't hit a good % of their shots.  Hawks can't contain any opponent.  If they can't score well, they have no chance.

We now know that this Atlanta Hawk team is a .500 team.  Too bad to be great and too good to be sorry.  Not Hot.  Not cold.  Luke warm - - That's us.

I want to know.  This is at least two recent games where every starter was (-) and every non starter was (+) for the game.  Our starters play the opponent's starters and our bench plays their bench.  Sounds like a good reason.  Last night, two starters couldn't score.  The other three couldn't carry the team.  

Last night the starters awoke to begin the game to find themselves deep in the hole.  "What happened?"  The game started and you were asleep!  We weren't intrested.  Blame five starters!

 

[MarylandHawk]

46 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

Before last night's game, "We will discover how good we are when 100% healthy."

Unfortuntally, we found out.  We are not really as good as most of us had hoped.  Every starter had a (-) and our four bench players had a (+).  Hunter had a terrible shooting night.  Young had a terrible shooting night.

It's a fact.  If our shots are not falling, we can't win.  The entire team is not good enough to win if they can't hit a good % of their shots.  Hawks can't contain any opponent.  If they can't score well, they have no chance.

We now know that this Atlanta Hawk team is a .500 team.  Too bad to be great and too good to be sorry.  Not Hot.  Not cold.  Luke warm - - That's us.

I want to know.  This is at least two recent games where every starter was (-) and every non starter was (+) for the game.  Our starters play the opponent's starters and our bench plays their bench.  Sounds like a good reason.  Last night, two starters couldn't score.  The other three couldn't carry the team.  

Last night the starters awoke to begin the game to find themselves deep in the hole.  "What happened?"  The game started and you were asleep!  We weren't intrested.  Blame five starters!

 

The game changed when the referee did not call that obvious offensive foul where Dre got hit in the lip. He had a bloody lip and had to leave to go to the locker room. NO went on a 6-0 run and never really looked back. 

[bird_dirt]

10 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

No matter how well the youngins are playing, Nate will still bench them. Hunter was brutal and didn't slow BI at all.

 

 

 

And look at the +/-

Bench all +, starters all -  

I know, I know, minutes played, who they played against, yada, yada. It’s still a bit startling. And one more point for why I think JJ can replace Hunter within the next year (please don’t trade JJ). 
 

[macdaddy]

A lot of Hunter bashing today and deservedly, but the guy is usually our best wing defender by a long shot.   So serious question, does he have more good games than bad?   I feel like i spend 2-3 games screaming at him and then 2-3 games saying 'he had a nice game'.  

[terrell]

1 hour ago, Gray Mule said:

Before last night's game, "We will discover how good we are when 100% healthy."

Unfortuntally, we found out.  We are not really as good as most of us had hoped.  Every starter had a (-) and our four bench players had a (+).  Hunter had a terrible shooting night.  Young had a terrible shooting night.

It's a fact.  If our shots are not falling, we can't win.  The entire team is not good enough to win if they can't hit a good % of their shots.  Hawks can't contain any opponent.  If they can't score well, they have no chance.

We now know that this Atlanta Hawk team is a .500 team.  Too bad to be great and too good to be sorry.  Not Hot.  Not cold.  Luke warm - - That's us.

I want to know.  This is at least two recent games where every starter was (-) and every non starter was (+) for the game.  Our starters play the opponent's starters and our bench plays their bench.  Sounds like a good reason.  Last night, two starters couldn't score.  The other three couldn't carry the team.  

Last night the starters awoke to begin the game to find themselves deep in the hole.  "What happened?"  The game started and you were asleep!  We weren't intrested.  Blame five starters!

 

I tried to tell em.. Hawks are who I thought they were...A mediocre team with mediocre "stars"...

[shakes]

16 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

A lot of Hunter bashing today and deservedly, but the guy is usually our best wing defender by a long shot.   So serious question, does he have more good games than bad?   I feel like i spend 2-3 games screaming at him and then 2-3 games saying 'he had a nice game'.  

Hunter would be a great #3 wing on a championship team.  Unfortunately he's our #1 wing.

[terrell]

16 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

A lot of Hunter bashing today and deservedly, but the guy is usually our best wing defender by a long shot.   So serious question, does he have more good games than bad?   I feel like i spend 2-3 games screaming at him and then 2-3 games saying 'he had a nice game'.  

.

 

[terrell]

6 minutes ago, shakes said:

Hunter would be a great #3 wing on a championship team.  Unfortunately he's our #1 wing.

Exactly what Ive been saying about Dre.. He's our best BIG wing defender but that aint saying much.. Just like Trae being our is our best player isnt saying much.. Hes great offensive player(if hes hot which is extremely rare), but he's just too damn small to be a #1 guy in the NBA imo...Ive been over this core.. Just letting things play out see if the FO actually cares about winning or not..

Edited February 8, 2023 by terrell

[sturt]

42 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

A lot of Hunter bashing today and deservedly, but the guy is usually our best wing defender by a long shot.   So serious question, does he have more good games than bad?   I feel like i spend 2-3 games screaming at him and then 2-3 games saying 'he had a nice game'.  

Said from the start of the year, this was one of about 3 things that had to evolve for this team to get back to being ubiquitously considered a contender... the other two being that DJ had to get calibrated and a chemistry with the rest of the team achieved, and that our three most recent 1st round picks were going to have to develop in a big way to be the backbone of our 2nd unit... but Dre's consistency is that third thing that has needed to happen. And it hasn't. We keep getting flash games, not games stacked on each other. He still might get there, but he's not there yet, and we need him to be there now.

[NBASupes]

44 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

A lot of Hunter bashing today and deservedly, but the guy is usually our best wing defender by a long shot.   So serious question, does he have more good games than bad?   I feel like i spend 2-3 games screaming at him and then 2-3 games saying 'he had a nice game'.  

Dre haters be in full force when he plays like crap. Dre is a top 12 SF in the NBA. Ya'll love to cry about it but guys like him are extremely hard to find. OG who's a top 10 SF is going for 3 1sts. These guys are hard to find. He had a rare game where he got cooked and gave us nothing on offense. When we have others who get cooked even worse and have terrible offensive games, I don't hear much noise. 

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Dre haters be in full force when he plays like crap. Dre is a top 12 SF in the NBA. Ya'll love to cry about it but guys like him are extremely hard to find. OG who's a top 10 SF is going for 3 1sts. These guys are hard to find. He had a rare game where he got cooked and gave us nothing on offense. When we have others who get cooked even worse and have terrible offensive games, I don't hear much noise. 

Yeah I'm partially with you.  He had a rare game where he got cooked but was it a rare game where he gave us nothing on offense?   I feel like that's about 50% of his games but i don't know.  

My point is just that offensively this is who he is.  There isn't going to be some big breakout at this point.  It should be good enough with the weapons we have at other positions but this season something is definitely off as we're just a .500 team and our offense is not consistently impressive.  

[NBASupes]

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

Yeah I'm partially with you.  He had a rare game where he got cooked but was it a rare game where he gave us nothing on offense?   I feel like that's about 50% of his games but i don't know.  

My point is just that offensively this is who he is.  There isn't going to be some big breakout at this point.  It should be good enough with the weapons we have at other positions but this season something is definitely off as we're just a .500 team and our offense is not consistently impressive.  

He's a 4th option in this offense that's isolation heavy. His offensive numbers will never be consistent with our style of play for any SF.

[sturt]

Some, if not a lot, of the best SFs have been exceptional at the put back... which means, first, exceptional at offensive rebounding... they supplement the rest of their offense.

[bird_dirt]

The good: Dre is averaging his best ppg this season, third highest on the team. 
The bad: he is averaging 15.7 ppg. 
He puts up as many 10 point games as 20 point games. He’s not a bad player, but he’s not what many hoped he would’ve become by now. 

[benhillboy]

Certainly not an end-all, be-all stat (none are) but on court and on/ off is a pretty reliable tool when illustrating impact.  Dre still leading the way for a terribly underwhelming team profile.  It’s pretty alarming Clint has fallen fast, but AJ and OO have been on a steady creep:

 

These values for Vit and Tyrese are promising going forward but they clearly aren’t rotational yet.  Should they have gotten J. Holidaze minutes hell yeah.

[Plainview1981]

Hunter in 1995 would be Tyrone Corbin. But he is a 16PPG player in this offensive era.