Official Game Thread: Thunder "at" Hawks

[Chrimturn]

Just now, Jody23 said:

A big part of the late game problems imo is they completely stop playing defense.  Guys are trying to win with offense, hit the big knock out punch shot.  And while they're unsuccessfully doing that, teams are racking up points because guys a mentally checking out defensively.

Right.  They did have some good looks and just missed them.  Other times they look flustered and the shot clock is against them and they rush to get it off.  Might as well be a turnover.  The whole game they drive, draw double teams and dish.  Or work it in then pass it back out to an open mid shot when the D collapses.  Seems like as the 4th goes along their circuits go berserk and they abandone all rational thought and go haywire.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

4 minutes ago, kg01 said:

We deserved an L tonyte, for all the reasons you state.

 

Disagree.

They deserved the win, with as well as JJ played tonight.

It would've been a shame if they lost this because of poor late game execution in a game we had full control of.

[JayBirdHawk]

What the hell is wrong with Bey's 3pt shooting. Missing wide open 3s.  

Get shot ready son.

[JayBirdHawk]

 

      

New Year, same shite!

[terrell]

32 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

What if they asked for 12 - AJ - Okongwu + pick.  

Would you do it?

Yep.. Seems like alot, But Im not that high on either player so......

Or call Brooklyn and see if we can get DFS and Claxton..

Edited January 4 by terrell

[Jody23]

 

[Sothron]

So glad we held on to win this. We have to make teams pay for double teaming Trae like that down the stretch.

[terrell]

26 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

What the hell is wrong with Bey's 3pt shooting. Missing wide open 3s.  

Get shot ready son.

Bey seems to shoot better coming off the bench.. lol

I wish we could mix he and Dre together

Dre size and D with Bey hustle and rebounding..

When is "12" coming back anyway?

[terrell]

 

[Spud2nique]

Can’t wait to watch the game stuck at work and saw boxscore.. JJ is nuts wtf. 4 steals???? 1 turnover.. 28 points 7 boards 3 dimes..

Did he sell popcorn too? 
 

He has to be one of the top 5 or so MOST IMPROVED IN THE LEAGUE, no? 
 

I know Maxey but .. wow. This dude has me talking about him daily. Great stuff! 

[marco102]

Went to the game and the Hawks made it tougher than needed. Jalen has shown sooo much growth compared to last year watching him live. Glad I could be there for his career game. 

Some tidbits. I saw Trae and Dj get in a really heated exchange on the bench after one of Traes turnovers. They seemed to be cool at the end of the game. No way they can let Bogi go he seems to connect all the guys.

Glad we got the win

 We are officially streaking!

[Atlantaholic]

11 minutes ago, marco102 said:

Went to the game and the Hawks made it tougher than needed. Jalen has shown sooo much growth compared to last year watching him live. Glad I could be there for his career game. 

Some tidbits. I saw Trae and Dj get in a really heated exchange on the bench after one of Traes turnovers. They seemed to be cool at the end of the game. No way they can let Bogi go he seems to connect all the guys.

Glad we got the win

 We are officially streaking!

A streak to me starts at three and we need to get one of the longer ones going. 

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, Jody23 said:

 

This is unacceptable. Teams have been doing this for the last 5+ years. When are we gonna solve this? Who will step up.

[JeffS17]

2 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

This is unacceptable. Teams have been doing this for the last 5+ years. When are we gonna solve this? Who will step up.

Everyone is bad.  Guys dont come to help most of the time.  When they do, no one else is moving into space to take advantage of the brief 4v3.  And part of the problem is as soon as Trae passes out of the double hes standing waiting for another pass instead of relocating on the court.

[SalvorMallow]

4 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Everyone is bad.  Guys dont come to help most of the time.  When they do, no one else is moving into space to take advantage of the brief 4v3.  And part of the problem is as soon as Trae passes out of the double hes standing waiting for another pass instead of relocating on the court.

No way you can put this on Trae's lack of off-ball movement when he is getting trapped at half court and full-court pressed. Murray seems to have a total brainfreeze in the 4Q because he starts making serial boneheaded plays the moment the game clock strikes 12. 

I'd love to see any Hawk try and get a passing angle so Trae doesn't have to make awkward bounce passes and lobs to hit his guys under the 3pt line from half court.

[JayBirdHawk]

3 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Everyone is bad.  Guys dont come to help most of the time.  When they do, no one else is moving into space to take advantage of the brief 4v3.  And part of the problem is as soon as Trae passes out of the double hes standing waiting for another pass instead of relocating on the court.

Part of that is also the players looking to give him the ball back because they have no idea what to do with the ball. Or they take 2 dribbles and pick up their dribble.

It's simple, go the basket - play to the front of the rim.  Move the ball.

[hylndr11]

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

No... what they should do is look at OKC's blueprint. 

OKC simply allows SGA to take the ball to the basket.   He either scores or gets fouled.   That works very well in the regular season.  OKC is a first round loss to a 7th or 8th seed. 

 

sounds familiar

[benhillboy]

The Hawks dominated the glass as they should’ve.  They just gotta provide some late game drama tho.

Refreshing to see Trae finally realize how impactful his defensive play making can be, most notably in tight games versus upper tier opponents.  That chase down steal on Chet and the hustle charge he drew (forgot who) absolutely could be seen as the difference as opposed to yesteryears when he’d be nowhere near those plays.  Highest paid, highest minute guys gotta do those things.  Gotta break away from that Lilliard career trajectory he’s on: awesome stats, one deep playoff run, 0 intangibles and defense to fortify the team leading you to demand a trade and piggyback and get dominated by an upstart in your division (little mini rant lol I can’t stand Lilliard)

But yeah, Jalen Tyrese Murhaf&@kin Johnson.  He’s like an outlaw.  Opponents simply can’t stop him from doing whatever the hell he wants most of the time.  Gaining more and more national traction for MIP.

Edited January 4 by benhillboy

[RedDawg#8]

No schedule favors coming our way. Building momentum is going to be hard. We needed this win to stay afloat.

We are solidly in the 9-12 seed tier in the East. Going to take some major improvements to get back to .500, and still need even more good fortune to climb out of the Play-In range.

#4-8 in the East (Mia, Ind, Orl, Cle, NYK) are all 4 to 6 games above .500.

There is a huge gap between them and the teams we are next to at the moment.

My only hope is that, by God’s grace, we can be at or slightly above .500 by the All Star break. We have 22 games before then, 14 home, 8 away. 14 of those games are against winning teams. 3 more games are against the Lakers and Warriors who are both only 1 game under .500 and will get the benefit of the superstar treatment. So at least 17 games where we would be the underdogs.

We have the benefit of a 5 game and 6 game home stands during that time, except we suck at home this year.

We have our work cut out for us just to get back to being average.

Go Hawks.