Official Playoff Game Thread: Hawks at Celtics -- GAME 2

[AtLaS]

42 minutes ago, terrell said:

39% FG

28% 3pt FG

Trae Youngs playoff shooting percentage.

Thats indefensible...

 

You have to look at the individual games though.  He had a few stinker games that dragged down his percentages (including the final game against Milwaukee on one leg), but he had some dominant games, and he was also EXTREMELY clutch.  The dude was a closer ALL playoffs.  Even in his bad game 7 against Philly he closed out that game at the end with key buckets and free throws. 

[Diesel]

6 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

We don't have good shooters.  We haven't had them all year.  The fact that the C's make dumb passes and turn the ball over gets totally covered up by 3 guys bombing threes.    It ain't all that complicated.  We have a lot of bad offensive players and despite our rose colored glasses some of our bench is unplayable in the playoffs. 

"our bench is unplayable in the playoffs"

So far.  Our bench will bounce back playing in Atlanta.  Either Bey or JJ will have a really big game in ATL.

[Diesel]

6 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

We need better shooting and defense, but to be honest with you, that pretty much is the same as saying we need better players.  I don't know where we go from here.  I think Quin needs time to set a culture, root out guys who are not buying in, and softly rebuild the program from the ground up.  The front office, along with coaching, has all turned over this year.  We're in transition.  Look at this -- we need stability, badly.

 

Yeah.. that's offseason talk.. and when it comes, Quin is going to make a lot of changes...

Both structurally and Philosophically. 

I can see a future that may look like:   OO, JJ, Bey, AJ, and Trae.  But we're a long way from that.

 

[JeffS17]

1 minute ago, Diesel said:

But we're a long way from that.

I agree but my point is that Quin just got here.  He cannot make miracles happens with like 4 practice sessions.

[Diesel]

28 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

We know Dre doesn't do that but when Dre is out there, he can defend. You know what happens when it's Bogi and Kevin, we can't defend even against shit teams much less elite teams like Boston 

I don't disagree with your premise, we would be a better offense with Bogi and Kevin instead of Dre and Murray. That said, we would still be limited and defensively, we would get dominated by a scrub team much less Boston

Ok..

So as the discussion moves from making the offense better to defense..

Yes, the defense will suffer with Kev and Bogi.  I still like to have shooters around with a healthy Clint/JC and an OO who is emerging...  We didn't have none of that against Miami...  and we had part of that the year before. 

 

[Diesel]

1 minute ago, JeffS17 said:

I agree but my point is that Quin just got here.  He cannot make miracles happens with like 4 practice sessions.

I don't disagree.  Like I said, in the offseason, he and the Braintrust will make a lot of moves.   But Quin kinda strikes me as a take what I am given kinda guy.    I think he strongly scouted us before taking the job and he saw something in us that he liked and believed that he could fix.   Because he could have gone anywhere.. and he turned down a few jobs... like Brooklyn and Orlando...  He didn't  come here just for the city.  He looked at Trae and DJ and saw something that he believed would challenge him but ultimately he could get to work.

 

 

[NBASupes]

6 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yeah.. that's offseason talk.. and when it comes, Quin is going to make a lot of changes...

Both structurally and Philosophically. 

I can see a future that may look like:   OO, JJ, Bey, AJ, and Trae.  But we're a long way from that.

 

Trae shouldn't be in our future. You can't justify him at this salary on a team that wants to contend. Murray, Hunter, OO, and the bench should be in the future plans. We just need Murray to take a favorable contract and hit on the Trae trade. 

[NBASupes]

5 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Ok..

So as the discussion moves from making the offense better to defense..

Yes, the defense will suffer with Kev and Bogi.  I still like to have shooters around with a healthy Clint/JC and an OO who is emerging...  We didn't have none of that against Miami...  and we had part of that the year before. 

 

We wasn't gonna win against Miami regardless and this Boston team is better than that Miami team. When are we gonna realize that the elephant in the room is wearing #11?

[AHF]

9 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

We wasn't gonna win against Miami regardless and this Boston team is better than that Miami team. When are we gonna realize that the elephant in the room is wearing #11?

We can't have this year's performance from Trae but I'm sure as **** not quitting on him because of this year's down year.  If Quin and Landry think that is the right move so be it but as a fan I'll be hoping to see much better offensive and defensive systems from Quin next year, some changes to the roster, and Trae rebounding to scoring efficiency much more like 2021-22 than 2022-23. Trae's challenge should be making Quin's new non-iso system work.  I'm not someone who thinks Trae would have been dominated last year had we had a healthy team in the postseason just like Miami didn't do it this year when they suddenly couldn't afford to triple team him.

I know you want Trae gone but I think the more constructive conversation is about how to succeed with him since I don't believe for a second that Quin chose to coach the Hawks but didn't want to try to make it work with Trae.  You wouldn't take the Memphis job if you thought JJJ or Ja needed to go, and you don't make an unusually early jump to coach Atlanta unless you believe in Trae.  

[Gray Mule]

Taking, and making, three point shots.  

Whatever Trae is doing, it ain't working.  His three point shooting is down and has been all season.  Murray, not known for his three, has been hitting some of his.  Bey has been terrible against Boston.

AJ Griffin has not played VS Celtics.  He hit the rookie wall but seemed to have recovered.  I felt so sad when Quin refused to send in the scrubs in the final minute or two of the game.  Could have got their feet wet in the playoffs.  Oh, well.  Time to win one Friday night!

[Diesel]

14 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Trae shouldn't be in our future. You can't justify him at this salary on a team that wants to contend.

Yes you can.

One of the only players that top ten in assists and PPGs.   It takes a certain architecture.  If you don't think that's the case then you're just being lazy.  Let's examine how wrongheaded your statement really is...

 

If you replace Jrue Holiday with Trae.. do you believe that Milwaukee doesn't contend?

If you replace Smart with Trae... do you believe that Boston doesn't contend?

 We've contended before with Trae... Haven't we??

Stop making these fact ignoring statements please. 

 

[NBASupes]

1 minute ago, AHF said:

We can't have this year's performance from Trae but I'm sure as **** not quitting on him because of this year's down year.  If Quin and Landry think that is the right move so be it but as a fan I'll be hoping to see a much better offensive system from Quin next year, some changes to the roster, and Trae rebounding to scoring efficiency much more like 2021-22 than 2022-23.  I'm not someone who thinks Trae would have been dominated last year had we had a healthy team in the postseason just like Miami didn't do it this year when they suddenly couldn't afford to triple team him.

I know you want Trae gone but I think the more constructive conversation is about how to succeed with him since I don't believe for a second that Quin chose to coach the Hawks but didn't want to try to make it work with Trae.  You wouldn't take the Memphis job if you thought JJJ or Ja needed to go, and you don't make an unusually early jump to coach Atlanta unless you believe in Trae.  

How do we succeed with him? We need stars. No one wants to give them to us for what we got. We have salary restrictions. What can we honestly do?

Dre has good trade value? Get a mid 1st for him just creates a hole where we would have to fill. 

Trade JC is the only one we can trade and at least have replacements within the roster for as we got 3 options. 

Okongwu at the 5 makes sense and makes us more flexible but he creates issues since he's not a fill-in for Capela. Both players help. It's like when we had Dennis and Jeff. 

Bogi is worth what he's worth but he's not getting us back anything good in a trade. 

How do we make this roster better?

You must win deals but the players we now need are significant, it's hard to get significant players without trading them.

For Utah to get Lauri and Sexton plus a lot of draft assets, they had to trade Mitchell.

On that squad, Mitchell wasn't the best player, it was Rudy who got them a ton of assets and it looks bad as Rudy is who you must build around and it's hard when you got KAT. 

The Hawks don't have a great deal of options and salary cap wise, we are around at the LT. 

I don't see it. I didn't see it a couple of months ago either. 

 

At the end of the day, we got players like Dre, Murray, OO, Bogi, our bench who can play in multiple offenses. Just move on to the motion offense and get significant players for Trae with upside who fit that scheme. 

I'll take Sengun/Green or Smith Jr./Green and future 1sts. We need to move forward. We got a decent team with or without Trae. 

We know we are capped play heliocentric ball. Move on to playing the motion offense and getting guys who fit it. 

3 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yes you can.

One of the only players that top ten in assists and PPGs.   It takes a certain architecture.  If you don't think that's the case then you're just being lazy.  Let's examine how wrongheaded your statement really is...

 

If you replace Jrue Holiday with Trae.. do you believe that Milwaukee doesn't contend?

If you replace Smart with Trae... do you believe that Boston doesn't contend?

 We've contended before with Trae... Haven't we??

Stop making these fact ignoring statements please. 

 

Raw stats are pointless in regards to winning and good possession by possession play. 

[Diesel]

17 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Raw stats are pointless in regards to winning and good possession by possession play. 

Really??  This is just a day for saying wrong shit for you huh??  Yeah, if I were a guess on your show, this kind of shit would get you laughed off the air. 

Can you name a player who led his team to the chip that wasn't top ten in anything?

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 hour ago, NBASupes said:

I like many of our players including Trae. 

All of them especially the starters add value. We lost Kevin and he added value too.

It's just that, salary wise, we peaked with this core. 

OO about to get paid too but at least he's a championship level player unlike the others. 

We just need to build around Murray and Murray needs to realize, we can only win if we all take good contracts or at the most, market value

Why should Murray take a pay cut, just so that other guys can get paid?  Most of your high level teams are paying the Luxury Tax, especially if they have 2 or more guys that they drafted and they want to keep.  It's not up to Murray, Trae, or any other player to take less. 

Market value is set by market demand.  No way I'm taking less than market value if I'm any NBA player.  If the Hawks want to keep the group together, they need to pay up.

If not, they'll make trades to downgrade player wise, and not re-sign others, hoping they sign different players that get better value.

[NBASupes]

15 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Why should Murray take a pay cut, just so that other guys can get paid?  Most of your high level teams are paying the Luxury Tax, especially if they have 2 or more guys that they drafted and they want to keep.  It's not up to Murray, Trae, or any other player to take less. 

Market value is set by market demand.  No way I'm taking less than market value if I'm any NBA player.  If the Hawks want to keep the group together, they need to pay up.

If not, they'll make trades to downgrade player wise, and not re-sign others, hoping they sign different players that get better value.

Murray taking market value is fine. The JC overpay is what I want us to avoid

[TheNorthCydeRises]

15 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

Why should Murray take a pay cut, just so that other guys can get paid?  Most of your high level teams are paying the Luxury Tax, especially if they have 2 or more guys that they drafted and they want to keep.  It's not up to Murray, Trae, or any other player to take less. 

Market value is set by market demand.  No way I'm taking less than market value if I'm any NBA player.  If the Hawks want to keep the group together, they need to pay up.

If not, they'll make trades to downgrade player wise, and not re-sign others, hoping they sign different players that get better value.

 

No surprise that most of the top contenders in the playoffs, are over the Luxury Tax

[NBASupes]

 

3 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

No surprise that most of the top contenders in the playoffs, are over the Luxury Tax

No one is going into the LT for a 8th seed.

[shakes]

7 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

 

No one is going into the LT for a 8th seed.

those breakdowns are an amazing way to really see just how pathetically lazy and/or stupid our players are.  pretty much every last one of them.

[NBASupes]

3 minutes ago, shakes said:

those breakdowns are an amazing way to really see just how pathetically lazy and/or stupid our players are.  pretty much every last one of them.

In possession by possession basketball, you see a number of mistakes but usually not 7 minutes worth and I honestly think he could have found more

[TheNorthCydeRises]

12 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

 

No one is going into the LT for a 8th seed.

 

That's not true.  

A that is a borderline playoff team, that has a rookie that is going into his 2nd deal, will go into the tax if they are serious about trying to build a winner.