We've been spoiled.

[Diesel]

Since our EC Finals run... we have become used to our team coming out and taking game 1.   I saw a lot of people on the thread yesterday basically giving up the series because we looked bad in game 1.    I even talked about being encouraged about our 2nd half play and it was met with vitriol from @benhillboy.

So this is what I say...  A win in game 2 is just as impactful as a win in game one.   It's going to take a lot to beat this team.  Namely, the ref is going to have to call moving screens on Al Horford. 

But we have a lot of work to do.. fortunately, we have seen what they have.   We have to plan, reorganize, refocus, and try again.   I want to see what Mazzula can do when his back is on the wall.   Chess, not checkers.

 

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Even if we don't win Game 2, it's all about Game 3.

Home teams are supposed to hold serve in the playoffs.  So if Boston takes Game 2, that's no surprise.  Just come back home and get Game 3.

Boston is obviously a good team, and we've been up and down from game to game since January.

So even if we lose Game 2, it's not the end of everything.  Just have to hold serve at home.

[Diesel]

2 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Even if we don't win Game 2, it's all about Game 3.

Home teams are supposed to hold serve in the playoffs.  So if Boston takes Game 2, that's no surprise.  Just come back home and get Game 3.

Boston is obviously a good team, and we've been up and down from game to game since January.

So even if we lose Game 2, it's not the end of everything.  Just have to hold serve at home.

I think part of our up and down is really about focus and changing game plans.   The place where I believe Quin can make his bones is the playoffs.   He game plans for one team.  We've seen a lot of what Boston does.  I think Quin is a better tactician and Mazzula.

 

[NBASupes]

The issue isn't being spoiled, it's being delusional. 

Trae been ass for years now and his fans will point to raw stats when his decision making wasn't good last year and dropped to extreme degrees this year. 

All of this has made Dre the scapegoat by his fans as they want Dre to be Kawhi Jr when he was never ever Kawhi like. In fact, this is Dre best season on both ends. 

It's hard to continue blaming the Kevin trade because the Bey trade erased that. The issue is, Murray and Trae don't fit. Need the rock and honestly, I'll rather have ole steady Daniel Jones at QB in Murray over extremely stat productive, f*** up productive, Tampa's Jameis Winston. 

I honestly was sold that Trae was a gamer because of his play in heroics and his first playoff run where he showed me he's the next Reggie Miller but honestly, was that all just teams being behind schedule with our 1/5 PnR and realizing isolation Trae isn't a bad play, it's actually a good one for the better defensive teams. And just the playin not really given you time to prep for Trae and single elimination Trae is hard to play against?

It doesn't help all of these teams became better shooters but we vastly regressed at shooting including Trae. 

So now every idiot and blaming their personal scapegoat when in reality, we are f***ed like Chuck with Trae. His lack of improvement compared to others in his draft class has been notable. 

SGA, Brunson, Mikal Bridges, have all gotten a lot better. 

JJJ, Luka, and Kevin been getting better. 

Ayton, Bagley, WCJ, and Sexton seem stuck. 

Trae, Bamba, and Knox seem to gotten worse. 

Maybe Trae fans are right, it's those around Trae. But is Murray really much worse, no than SA. No, he's the same player, just with less touches and he's playing with two rebounding bigs in Atlanta whereas he was playing with bigs like Keldon Johnson and Luka Poetl in SA. His defense seem to get somewhat exposed as he dies on screens as much as Trae. Then again, it wouldn't be so bad if he was the PG where dying on screens is a lot more common. 

Maybe, that was just a bad trade as Trae didn't need another PG to play beside. Can we really win with someone who makes a million bad decisions on possession by possession like Trae and what we saw in the 2021 playoffs might just have been a lie. Maybe it was just 2021 playoff Trae but playoff Trae is just RS Trae with occasional special moments. 

Edited April 16, 2023 by NBASupes

[ShooterSays]

We are NOT spoiled lol

Game 2 is a must-win in my book. I don't want to come back to ATL down 0-2. That's too big of a hole to dig out of against this Boston team imo.

[theheroatl]

It makes sense after a tremendous win at Miami that we’d lay a brick at Boston. The question as a .500 team all season is do we win on Tuesday.

[Diesel]

3 hours ago, NBASupes said:

So now every idiot and blaming their personal scapegoat

[Wretch]

• We gave up 45 points in the 2nd quarter
• We were -10 against our average bench contribution
• We shot 5/29 (17%) on 3's

...and we lost by 13.  That's a totally different game if we weren't complete ass at pretty much everything.  Hell, we could have won that game with 30% 3pt shooting. 

We're not done.

 

[Diesel]

3 hours ago, theheroatl said:

It makes sense after a tremendous win at Miami that we’d lay a brick at Boston. The question as a .500 team all season is do we win on Tuesday.

The odds suggest that we do. 

 

[benhillboy]

6 hours ago, NBASupes said:

The issue isn't being spoiled, it's being delusional. 

Trae been ass for years now and his fans will point to raw stats when his decision making wasn't good last year and dropped to extreme degrees this year. 

All of this has made Dre the scapegoat by his fans as they want Dre to be Kawhi Jr when he was never ever Kawhi like. In fact, this is Dre best season on both ends. 

It's hard to continue blaming the Kevin trade because the Bey trade erased that. The issue is, Murray and Trae don't fit. Need the rock and honestly, I'll rather have ole steady Daniel Jones at QB in Murray over extremely stat productive, f*** up productive, Tampa's Jameis Winston. 

I honestly was sold that Trae was a gamer because of his play in heroics and his first playoff run where he showed me he's the next Reggie Miller but honestly, was that all just teams being behind schedule with our 1/5 PnR and realizing isolation Trae isn't a bad play, it's actually a good one for the better defensive teams. And just the playin not really given you time to prep for Trae and single elimination Trae is hard to play against?

It doesn't help all of these teams became better shooters but we vastly regressed at shooting including Trae. 

So now every idiot and blaming their personal scapegoat when in reality, we are f***ed like Chuck with Trae. His lack of improvement compared to others in his draft class has been notable. 

SGA, Brunson, Mikal Bridges, have all gotten a lot better. 

JJJ, Luka, and Kevin been getting better. 

Ayton, Bagley, WCJ, and Sexton seem stuck. 

Trae, Bamba, and Knox seem to gotten worse. 

Maybe Trae fans are right, it's those around Trae. But is Murray really much worse, no than SA. No, he's the same player, just with less touches and he's playing with two rebounding bigs in Atlanta whereas he was playing with bigs like Keldon Johnson and Luka Poetl in SA. His defense seem to get somewhat exposed as he dies on screens as much as Trae. Then again, it wouldn't be so bad if he was the PG where dying on screens is a lot more common. 

Maybe, that was just a bad trade as Trae didn't need another PG to play beside. Can we really win with someone who makes a million bad decisions on possession by possession like Trae and what we saw in the 2021 playoffs might just have been a lie. Maybe it was just 2021 playoff Trae but playoff Trae is just RS Trae with occasional special moments. 

It’s funny you mention his draft class, I was just looking at this yesterday.  These are number of playoff games and amount of playoff win shares:

Trae 23, 0.7

Luka 28, 3.1

SGA 13, 0.9

Brunson 26, 1.9

JJJ 17, 1

Rob Williams 37, 3.2

Shake Milton 29, 0.6

Mikal Bridges 36, 2.8

DeAndre Ayton 35, 4.8

 

Here is the rest of the Hawks core for good measure during that span:

John 24, 1.9

Bogi 23, 0.7, same as Trae 

Clint 21, 1.9

Kevin Huerter 24, 0.8

Gallo 23, 1

Delon had 0.4 win shares in the Miami series alone.

I was always surprised you’ve been so high on him over the years.  Sound teams salivate at using him as an unwitting double agent against the Hawks on both ends.

Edited April 17, 2023 by benhillboy

[benhillboy]

Oh I forgot Dre.  11 games, 0.4 shares.  Again, better playoff value than Trae.

[NBASupes]

1 hour ago, benhillboy said:

It’s funny you mention his draft class, I was just looking at this yesterday.  These are number of playoff games and amount of playoff win shares:

Trae 23, 0.7

Luka 28, 3.1

SGA 13, 0.9

Brunson 26, 1.9

JJJ 17, 1

Rob Williams 37, 3.2

Shake Milton 29, 0.6

Mikal Bridges 36, 2.8

DeAndre Ayton 35, 4.8

 

Here is the rest of the Hawks core for good measure during that span:

John 24, 1.9

Bogi 23, 0.7, same as Trae 

Clint 21, 1.9

Kevin Huerter 24, 0.8

Gallo 23, 1

Delon had 0.4 win shares in the Miami series alone.

I was always surprised you’ve been so high on him over the years.  Sound teams salivate at using him as an unwitting double agent against the Hawks on both ends.

His special abilities are truly special but when you make so many bad decisions, it's really hard to justify. I actually think his shares are down due to G1 and the Heat series which I didn't exactly blame on Trae. I actually excused Trae for that series when maybe I shouldn't have. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

10 hours ago, NBASupes said:

The issue isn't being spoiled, it's being delusional. 

Trae been ass for years now and his fans will point to raw stats when his decision making wasn't good last year and dropped to extreme degrees this year. 

All of this has made Dre the scapegoat by his fans as they want Dre to be Kawhi Jr when he was never ever Kawhi like. In fact, this is Dre best season on both ends. 

It's hard to continue blaming the Kevin trade because the Bey trade erased that. The issue is, Murray and Trae don't fit. Need the rock and honestly, I'll rather have ole steady Daniel Jones at QB in Murray over extremely stat productive, f*** up productive, Tampa's Jameis Winston. 

I honestly was sold that Trae was a gamer because of his play in heroics and his first playoff run where he showed me he's the next Reggie Miller but honestly, was that all just teams being behind schedule with our 1/5 PnR and realizing isolation Trae isn't a bad play, it's actually a good one for the better defensive teams. And just the playin not really given you time to prep for Trae and single elimination Trae is hard to play against?

It doesn't help all of these teams became better shooters but we vastly regressed at shooting including Trae. 

So now every idiot and blaming their personal scapegoat when in reality, we are f***ed like Chuck with Trae. His lack of improvement compared to others in his draft class has been notable. 

SGA, Brunson, Mikal Bridges, have all gotten a lot better. 

JJJ, Luka, and Kevin been getting better. 

Ayton, Bagley, WCJ, and Sexton seem stuck. 

Trae, Bamba, and Knox seem to gotten worse. 

Maybe Trae fans are right, it's those around Trae. But is Murray really much worse, no than SA. No, he's the same player, just with less touches and he's playing with two rebounding bigs in Atlanta whereas he was playing with bigs like Keldon Johnson and Luka Poetl in SA. His defense seem to get somewhat exposed as he dies on screens as much as Trae. Then again, it wouldn't be so bad if he was the PG where dying on screens is a lot more common. 

Maybe, that was just a bad trade as Trae didn't need another PG to play beside. Can we really win with someone who makes a million bad decisions on possession by possession like Trae and what we saw in the 2021 playoffs might just have been a lie. Maybe it was just 2021 playoff Trae but playoff Trae is just RS Trae with occasional special moments. 

 

Trae had the best year of his career last year, but obviously was historically bad in the playoff series vs Miami, which tarnished all of what he did last season.  This season, his efficiency has obviously been down, with only a 6 - 7 week stretch of very good basketball from about mid-January to early March.  He's been very inefficient since the Golden State win in mid-March with 37% FG and barely 30% 3FG shooting

In those same stretch of games, Dre has shot 44% FG and 25% 3FG.  Dre has gotten the heat from the fan base, not because of the play of Trae, but because we're seeing the same signs that we saw in Marvin Williams, in which he showed little to no improvement in his game in his first 4 years in the league.  You say this season is the best of his career.  I say this season is the most healthy he's been in his career. But he actually played better in his 2nd season, before he got hurt.  All of his numbers show that.

Production matters.  It matters with Trae and it matters with Dre.  We need Trae to be close to the player that we saw last season ( sans Miami playoffs ).  And we need Dre to not only be consistent, but show a little more drive and hustle out on the floor.

It is perfectly OK to ask both players to do what they're supposed to do, and a little more, if need be.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

No matter what people say about the personnel on this team, you CANNOT have 2 starting players who play heavy minutes, basically be at the bottom of this list.  It CANNOT happen.

 

It wasn't always like this though.  At one time, you could make a case in the 20 - 21 season that Hunter and Collins were trending toward being two of our top 3 players on the team, mainly because their defense was outstanding.

So what happened?

They're on Trae because he's not shooting like Trae and has an increase in turnovers. 

But they're on those other 2 players because they see the guys replacing them bringing more to the table.  This is why the base wants a guy like Jalen Johnson to replace one of them.

There are no scapegoats around here.  Fans just expect players to play up to their potential and not sell the team out. If Trae gets those criticisms as the star of the team, the role players are going to get heat as well for not even doing their basic job functions. 

No one is asking them to play like superstars.  Just do your damn job and don't disappear for 75% of a game.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

 

Whatever we started to do on defense in the 2nd half of that game, we need to try to replicate it.  Held the C's to 35% FG shooting and sub 25% 3 point shooting.

https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&ContextMeasure=FG3A&EndPeriod=0&EndRange=28800&GameID=0042200111&PlayerID=0&RangeType=0&Season=2022-23&SeasonType=Playoffs&StartPeriod=0&StartRange=0&TeamID=1610612738&flag=3&sct=plot&section=game

 

Just watching the video box score on their 3 point attempts, we all know that they got red hot from 3 in that 2nd quarter.  They hit a few tough 3s with a hand in their face or at the end of the shot clock.  Trae gave up a few 3s to White, because he went under the screen instead of fighting over it. 

In the 2nd half, we did a much better job of getting a hand in people's faces and not giving them wide open looks.  The tough 3s they made in the 2nd quarter, didn't fall in the 3rd and most of the 4th quarters.  They got a big 3 from Brown and Horford in the 4th that sealed the game. 

One thing I did notice is that our bigs are used to somewhat sagging back to protect the rim.  But against the Celtics, their bigs can shoot.  So I think we may have to start thinking about switching everything off the screens, so that we'll have someone in the vicinity of a shooter at all times, or the bigs have to stay glued to guys like Horford, and just give up the middle.  If they do that, it's up to our guards to stop or slow down the dribble drive.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

As a fan base, it's perfectly OK to expect Trae Young to have a game like this.  He's done it before in the playoffs, so this is not a lofty expectation.

 

 

But it is also OK to ask just one of our role players to have a game like this?  And he had this game on the road.

 

 

Production matters.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Or this?

 

Production matters.

[Diesel]

5 hours ago, benhillboy said:

It’s funny you mention his draft class, I was just looking at this yesterday.  These are number of playoff games and amount of playoff win shares:

Trae 23, 0.7

Luka 28, 3.1

SGA 13, 0.9

Brunson 26, 1.9

JJJ 17, 1

Rob Williams 37, 3.2

Shake Milton 29, 0.6

Mikal Bridges 36, 2.8

DeAndre Ayton 35, 4.8

 

Here is the rest of the Hawks core for good measure during that span:

John 24, 1.9

Bogi 23, 0.7, same as Trae 

Clint 21, 1.9

Kevin Huerter 24, 0.8

Gallo 23, 1

Delon had 0.4 win shares in the Miami series alone.

I was always surprised you’ve been so high on him over the years.  Sound teams salivate at using him as an unwitting double agent against the Hawks on both ends.

Are we really roasting Trae about his playoff record??

 

 

Name ONE Hawk that averaged 25.5, 8.6, and 3.3 for his Hawks Career in the playoffs. 

 

[thecampster]

5 hours ago, benhillboy said:

It’s funny you mention his draft class, I was just looking at this yesterday.  These are number of playoff games and amount of playoff win shares:

Trae 23, 0.7

Luka 28, 3.1 (At Home watching)

SGA 13, 0.9

Brunson 26, 1.9

JJJ 17, 1

Rob Williams 37, 3.2

Shake Milton 29, 0.6

Mikal Bridges 36, 2.8

DeAndre Ayton 35, 4.8

 

Here is the rest of the Hawks core for good measure during that span:

John 24, 1.9

Bogi 23, 0.7, same as Trae 

Clint 21, 1.9

Kevin Huerter 24, 0.8

Gallo 23, 1

Delon had 0.4 win shares in the Miami series alone.

I was always surprised you’ve been so high on him over the years.  Sound teams salivate at using him as an unwitting double agent against the Hawks on both ends.

Luka 28, 3.1 (At Home Watching)

SGA 13, 0.9 (At Home Watching)

 

and yah....stats are a weird thing

[macdaddy]

If I"m Boston I'd be very concerned that a team just shot 5-29 from three and only lost by 13 because Boston only scored 38 second half points.   Yeah we laid in an egg in the first half but i ended the game encouraged.   Boston is a great shooting team but they seem soft.  We play like we did in the second half then we are in great shape. 

I'm not going to single anyone out because basically the whole team played like crap individually but they brought some intensity on D in the second half so i'll give them credit.   I should single a few out though because there were a few guys who were laughably terrible.