TheNorthCydeRises

Oh well. We see the direct result of Horford not playing. All of those people that like to talk about how he's not doing this or that, look what happened today. Cry for Zaza to play . . cry for Solo to play. And got virtually nothing out of the both of them, on either end of the floor. Very disappointed in Marvin and Josh today, from a rebounding standpoint. Those two guys needed to crash the boards on both ends, with Horford out . . and they only got 4 rebounds a piece. Smoove especially, needs to start battling on the inside, and get those rebounds. I've been disappointed in his rebounding all year. He's had just one double-digit rebounding game since he's come back. Rebounding isn't just about jumping, it's about positioning as well. He and Marvin need to start doing a better job than what they are doing from that standpoint. The game at Phoenix will be interesting, with Shaq playing well these days. Might have to shoot lights out from the outside, just to stay in that game. Prediction: Randolph Morris will see some 1st half PT against Shaq on Tuesday.

Actually . . . the Pistons are one of those teams. Lately, they've started to crank it up ( won 8 of their last 9 . . . 11 of last 14 ), but you could easily say that they're doing exactly the same thing we're doing. They're beating the bad teams that they're supposed to beat, and they can beat a good team who is missing a key player or two. But that team is FAR from playing championship caliber basketball on a nightly basis. With Iverson, that team takes a ton . . a TON of jumpers, just like we do. They don't jack up a lot of 3's, but they shoot a lot of midrange shots, instead of going to the hole or getting it on the inside. So if they have a cold shooting night, they're going to have to do exactly what we do at times . . scratch and claw out wins, even against bad teams . . especially on the road. But at the end of the day, they're 22 - 12, and battling us for that #4 spot in the East. Come playoff time, they're going to be a tough out for any team that plays them. Yeah, it would be nice to have someone like a Carlos Boozer, who we could throw it to down on the low block, and see him go to work . . or have a PG that could penetrate AND FINISH ( key word . . finish ) all of the time. But we don't have that. We're a 3-point, run and gun team, that goes through our best halfcourt player when we can't get out and run. If that's how we have to play, in order to win games, I'm satisfied with that. As long as we keep a commitment to play defense, we'll be in just about all of our games. No excuse or justification for last night though. They just flat out stunk it up on the court. Hopefully, we'll never see that ever again.

ROAD GAMES . . . teams over .500 in bold red Magic Suns Clippers Warriors Bulls Heat Knicks Bucks T-Wolves Bobcats Pistons Lakers Kings Blazers Jazz Nuggets Wizards Knicks Bobcats ********** When you actually break it down, the next 19 road games isn't as ominous as it looks. I think we'll struggle a little against the teams with winning records. Thankfully, we only have 8 of the 19 road games against them. I want to be generous, and saw we'll go 4 - 4 against those 8 teams, but I have to be more realistic . . . . 2 - 6. Aganst those teams under .500, however, we should be able to handle most of those teams. In those 11 games, I fully expect the Hawks to underachiev in a few of them, but handle most of the teams they should beat. I'll say an 8 - 3 record vs these teams. (( Note: One of the trends since Bibby has arrived to the Hawks, is that we don't make a habit of losing to real bad teams anymore. We'll lose to a mediocre team with a superstar player, or a group of talented players. But we don't regularly lose to bad teams anymore )) Projected record for the upcoming road games . . . 10 - 9 ********* HOME GAMES . . . teams over .500 in bold red Magic Sixers Raptors Bucks Suns Nets Clippers Wizards Heat Cavaliers This team has been flat out rolling at home, and frankly, I only see us losing one . . maybe 2 of these games at the most. Projected home record . . . 9 - 1 PROJECTED TOTAL RECORD for the next 29 games . . . 19 - 10 PROJECTED OVERALL RECORD . . . 41 - 21 ******** The only part of the schedule that troubles me, is the west coast road trip right after the All-Star break. If we struggle there, we have Miami and Cleveland staring us in the face when we get at home. That could . . could be a bad stretch of games, where we're on a 5 or 6 game losing streak ( worst case scenario ). If that's the case, we should have a 14 - 15 record . . or somewhere around there . . for the next 29 games. Even with that, you're still looking at the Hawks having a 36 - 26 record . . which should still be enough for #5 in the East, but might be a few games behind Detroit for the #4 spot. The wild cards in this, could be the injury to Melo, which might see him miss quite a few games . . . and the return of Arenas to the Wizards. And of course, any injury to our starting 5, especially to JJ, Smith, or Bibby, could severly hamper this team, especially against the good teams.

Follow up: So I'm in ATL Saturday night, without a ticket. When I'm in that situation, I don't mind one bit going to the scalpers to buy my ticket. I stick to my guns, and tell myself to pay no more than face value for one of the 200 - 207 level tickets. ( $40 - $60 ) So it's literally 10 minutes before 7 pm, and I'm looking to buy a ticket. Scalper comes to me and I ask for a 200 level ticket. He has two 200 level tickets together, and a 102 level ticket. 102 level ticket retails for $125, so I'm not going for that. He tries to get me to buy two of the 200 level tickets because he didn't want to break them up . . or give him at least $80 for the 102 level ticket. I stick to my guns and tell him I'm not spending more than $60. I got the 102 level ticket for $60. First time sitting on the club level side . . and that ish was NIIIIIICEEE! The women on the club level side . . . wooo. Food is much, much better as well. And where I was sitting, I even got to see the football playoff games, because they had a plasma flat screen set up on the floor. That ticket price was good for me, but that also speaks volumes about the availability and demand for tickets to Hawks games. For a game like Houston, I fully expected the game to be sold out, and have a hard time getting a good ticket 10 minutes before gametime. But as I was watching the game and peeping the crowd, I noticed a TON of empty seats in the 300 level areas that neve filled in. The supposedly "CHEAP" seats. Overall, it was a nice crowd ( I think 16,000 + . . which is our season average ). But for a weekend game against one of the better teams in the West, you'd expect the arena to be at capacity level. The people who claim to be fans of this team, just need to get to the arena every once in a while. There are GOOD SEATS AVAILABLE to almost every Hawks game. People have to want to see the HAWKS . . not to see some other team with better known stars. Until that changes, we'll always be below 15th in attendance. And that's a shame.

[rant] You gotta love the ATL natives. They blame everything . . except straight up fan apathy . . which runs rampant in ATL. That's the #1 reason why the Hawks can't get the support they should be getting. And that's why people say it's a bad sports town. Now crucify me for saying that. The numbers speak for themselves. Unless a marquee name team comes to town, the people just flat out don't show up like they should. It's 4+ million people in metro ATL . . and people can't even support a GOOD Hawks team, like the other good teams and their fans do? Portland is #3 on that list. Fuggin Oklahoma City is #12. Even New Orleans, a city that damn near got washed off the map, is #17. Recession . . mecession. The recession doesn't hurt those who have the money to go to these games, which are usually the middle and upper class folks. The Hawks have all kinds of promotions going on, from the "all you can eat" seats, to "game packs" to the different "family nights" they have. No excuse for people to make a concerted effort to see this team . . . ESPECIALLY THIS YEAR!! I'll be at Philips tomorrow night . . driving from almost 300 miles away . . to see the Hawks for the 4th time this season. And some of you can't even spend $20 - $50 on a single ticket . . or make one family outing a month, to support the Hawks? Forget the team . . . the FANS need to RISE UP!! [/rant]

I agree. Maybe the best post in the last 3 years on this board.

LOL I don't think that's necessarily true . . . but it sure seems that way by reading some of these posts. People say we're supposed to dominate the Pacers. Why? Because they have a worse record than we do? Good teams didn't dominate us last year all the time on our home court, so why should anything be different concerning the "good" Hawks, when they go on the road this year? On the road . . a win is a win. I could care less if we won the game 59 - 58. As long as we got that road win, that's all that counts. The good teams grind out tough wins on the road. We're a good team folks.

And no . . . I didn't believe they could be 21 - 10 right now. I did believe that they had a shot at winning 50 games if they really took care of their homecourt. ( I think I said 47 wins before the season started ) It's important for us to take care of the homecourt, and for the crowd to go out and support the Hawks to make that home court advantage even greater.

It's just nice to watch this team, and feel that even if we are down, we'll still have a good shot to win. The Hawks are doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. You take care of your homecourt, and you battle on the road, hoping you can win 50% - 65% of those games. When we were a bad team, we tended to play somewhat well at home . . even against "good" teams. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, we should always expect the weaker teams to battle us on their home court. We may not beat the elite teams on the road, but we can beat the average to below average teams on the road consistently. In the grand scheme of things, that's exactly what you have to do, to become a good team. Saturday will be interesting. Rockets come to town. If we lose, people will be griping again. ( even though we still may be 22 - 11 ). But if we win . . . . the comments should be interesting.

People may laugh at that . . . but if the Hawks win 55 or more games, and win the division, he will be the Coach of the Year. 55 wins = 33 home wins ( 33 - 8 overall home record ) + 22 road wins ( 22 - 19 overall road record ). With the way this team is playing, I think that mark is VERY OBTAINABLE. NBA Awards: MVP: ( LeBron ) . . JJ will finish 5th in the voting Coach of Year: Woody will win it Defensive POY: ( Garnett ) . . . Smith will finish 4th in voting 6th man: ( Posey ) . . Flip or Zaza will get 1 vote Most Improved: ( Devin Harris ) . . . Marvin will finish 6th in the voting All-NBA teams: - JJ will be named to 3rd team All-NBA - Smith will be named to 3rd team All-NBA defense

LOL . . this is funny. Our last 7 games last year. * loss to Philly by 5 at home . . on a night where everybody but Bibby ( went 1 - 11 FG ) played well. Before this point, we'd won 9 of our last 11 games. * beat Philly the next night, in Philly, by 7 . . . defense was pretty good that game. Bibby was cold again ( 4 - 13 FG ), while the rest of the guys were on their game. * loss @ Indy by 14 . . . JJ was stellar ( 13 - 24 FG for 30 points ). Bibby went ( 0 - 8 FG ) and scored 2. Horford got in early foul trouble, and only played 19 minutes. A must win game for Indy, to have any hope of staying alive for that #8 spot. * beat Knicks at home by 12 . . . everybody, even Bibby ( 10 - 19 FG . . 24 points ), played great. Hawks had won 11 of their last 15 games at this point. * loss to Boston at home by 10 . . . game was TIED at 74, after 3 quarters, with Atlanta having a 6 point lead with 8 minutes left. Hawks then went scoreless for the next 6 minutes, while Boston went on a 13 - 0 run, to take a 7 point lead. JJ was ice cold ( 6 - 21 FG ). (( NOTE: Indy loses the following monday night, to guarantee the #8 spot to the Hawks. )) * loss to Orlando at home by 16 . . . Hawks led 55 - 53 lead at halftime. JJ plays 17 minutes, Bibby 21 minutes. Salim ( 28 ) and Acie ( 16 ) played a combined 44 minutes. * loss @ Miami by 14 . . . JJ plays 29 minutes, takes 6 shots. Hawks led 61 - 55 at halftime. Salim plays 19 minutes.

Diesel . . are you just bringing this up just for the sake of argument? Lowry is nice . . nice enough to finally have Conley sit on the bench. He's an aggressive playing PG. But guys like Carter and Marcus Williams are no better than Anthony Johnson, as far as impact. I think if Woody made a 20 minute a game commitment to Acie, he could easily do what Carter does . . possibly more. Marcus Williams? Thank GOD we didn't get that kid. He can't even get off the bench in Golden St. Acie IS a pure PG, in my opinion. He just needs to finish better and play with some damn confidence. Maybe what people should wish for, is for Flip to get hurt . . to force Woody to play Acie extended minutes. But if that happened, it's still up to Acie to take advantage of the extra PT. As long as people like Bibby, Marvin, Mo, and Flip keep knocking down open jumpers, Woody will continue to play JJ like he's LeBron.

A pure PG would take most of the ball handling duties away from JJ in the halfcourt, and maybe make us a better fastbreak team . . IF . . you know who would give the ball up to him, and just fill the lane, so that the pure PG could pass it to him for the dunk. I think JJ would be able to conserve more energy, with a pure PG here. A pure PG could also possibly make the 2nd unit a little better, if he were to play with them. The most important thing though, is for that pure PG to be able to get to the rim and score. I think that's the one thing that keeps Acie off the floor. If he could finish everytime he got to the rim, without getting his shot block, or commiting an offensive foul, there's no way he'd be buried on the bench. According to 82games.com, Acie sees his shot blocked when going inside 26% of the time. That's a lot, considering that he doesn't see a lot of PT to begin with. The more I watch this team, the more I think Woody wants JJ to play just like LeBron James, especially in the half court. He trusts JJ's decision making unconditionally. And he knows that JJ, the vast majority of the time, will make the correct play. So he wants JJ involved in the halfcourt offense as much as possible, either as a scorer or as a distributor. Bibby makes JJ playing like LeBron much easier, because he's knocking down shots left and right. So it's either cover JJ one-on-one, and see if he can beat you . . . or double and triple JJ, and let everybody else have wide open shots.

Good thread Diesel. I'll reply right here, before even reading the rest of the thread. In JJ's first year here, He was one of only 5 players who scored more than 1600 points . . had 500 assists . . and 100 steals. In that year, I think it was LeBron, Arenas, Wade, and I think Iverson. To me . . JJ is the ish. He not only can score, he can take on the burden of being the playmaker if called upon. Plus he's an above average defender. You can put him in that class, because he's that important to the Hawks. He may not be as charasmatic or as athletic as those guys, but he's an elite talent in this league. It's just a shame that some in our fan base has always doubted him, because he may not can do as much as those top level guys. It's amazing though what happens, when you surround him with shooters, and guys who play decent defense. Heck no would I trade him for Melo . . . and l LOVE Melo's offensive game.

I think the danger in your system, is that you could potentially get a marquee matchup in the first round of the playoffs, if one of the top teams has an injury, and the team goes into a tailspin. That wouldn't be good for the league, as the playoffs went on. With Smoove out, we were just above a .500 team. Imagine what would happen if we were 49 - 19 after 68 games, but lost JJ in the first game of your 14 game schedule. And we had to play the top 14 teams in the league, to see which tier we fell in. I could easily see the Hawks losing all of their road games, and winning 2, maybe 3 home games. So if I'm reading you right, instead of still being possibly a top 4 team in the East, with a 52 - 30 record, we'd end up with a low seed in Tier 2 . . . in a matchup with a much stronger team in the first round? I might be reading that wrong, so clarify it please.

Question: What if LeBron goes down with a sprained ankle in Game 1 of the 14 game schedule . . and he's down for 4 weeks, missing 13 of the 14 games ? And within that time, the Cavs DO collapse, because they ARE that reliant on LeBron . . and go 1 - 13? With the tougher schedule, that could easily happen, because every team they'd be playing, would be a big time caliber team. What would the Cavs standing in your system be then? Could an injury, or multiple injuries, really impact your system tremendously. And if it could, it'll pretty much make everything they did in the first part of the season, null and void, right? But under the current system, a Cavs team collasping like that, would still be 60 - 22, and have a very high seed in the East portion of the playoffs. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but clarify what would happen to the Cavs, if a scenario like that would happen under your system.

Interesting stuff Sturt. Not in favor of it, but interesting. The NBA season and playoff format is dang near perfect right now, in my opinion. Just because OKC is out of position, doesn't mean that the entire system needs to be adjusted and the tradition of East vs West conference teams need to be scrapped. And the pitiful teams should not be rewarded with a playoff game to possibly win a NBA title . . not even one on the road. That'll be like letting all 300+ NCAA D-1 teams into the NCAA tournament. Nah . . not in favor of that at all. But there could be a happy median. How about developing/expanding on something that I started to do 2 years ago, but didn't finish. Develop a tournament for the teams that DON'T make the playoffs. An NBA Draft Lottery tournament. - Let the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs, fight it out to see who will obtain the #1 pick. This way, you'll see a team that might be just a player away, be able to get that #1 pick, instead of some sorry team that isn't going anywhere. I would've much rather seen Kevin Durant go to a team like the Knicks, than the Sonics. NBA Draft Lottery Tournament set-up: - 8-team single elimination tournament to be played in a non-NBA city ( preferably a place like Vegas . . . but could be rotated to St. Louis, Louisville, Tampa, Settle ) - Teams with the 2 worst records in the league, automatically make it to the tournament. That leaves 12 teams to battle for the 6 remaining spots, to be determined by play-in games. ( As of 12/26, the 2 worst teams are Oklahoma City and Washington ) - Tournament is developed to prevent tanking by teams, jockeying for more ping-pong balls. This system would actually encourage even non-playoff teams to keep winning, in order to possibly secure a home game in the play-in round of the Draft Lottery tournament. - Seed the 12 remaining teams 1 through 6 in each conference, according to record. - Have the corresponding seeds in each conference play each other in the play-in games, to see who earns the spot in the tourney. East 1 vs West 1 . . East 2 vs West 2 . . etc. Team with best record gets the home court for that one game. East ( as of 12/26 ): 1) Chicago 2) Philly 3) New York 4) Toronto 5) Indiana 6) Charlotte West ( as of 12/26 ): 1) Utah 2) Memphis 3) LA Clippers 4) Golden St 5) Sacramento 6) Minnesota So your Play-In game matchups will be: (1) Chicago @ Utah . . . projected winner by me ( Utah ) (2) Memphis @ Philadelphia . . . ( Philly ) (3) LA Clippers @ New York . . . ( NY ) (4) Golden St @ Toronto . . . ( Toronto ) (5) Sacramento @ Indiana . . . ( Indiana ) (6) Minnesota @ Charlotte . . . ( Minnesota ) - After the Play-In game winners are determined, you add them to the 2 worst teams, and play the 3-game, 3-day tournament at a neutral site: - Seeding will be a little different. To give the bottom 2 teams a chance to advance out of the first round, you group them against the winners of the (5) and (6) seed conference matchup. In this scenario, the worst team, Oklahoma City, will play the (6) winner . . Washington will play the (5) winner. - Then, you would have (1) play (4), who would be grouped with the OKC vs (6) game . . and (2) play (3), grouped with the Washington vs (5) game, to round out the 8-team tournament field ********* 1st ROUND - Oklahoma City vs (6) Minnesota . . projected winner ( OKC ) - (1) Utah vs (4) Toronto . . . ( Utah ) - (2) Philly vs (3) NY Knicks . . . ( NY Knicks ) - Washington vs (5) Indiana . . . ( Indiana ) ****** SEMIFINAL ROUND - OKC vs Utah . . . ( Utah ) - NY Knicks vs Indiana . . . ( Indiana ) ****** - So now, you would have Utah and Indiana to play for who gets to be the #1 pick in the finals. This is the ONLY THING that is decided by this tournament. After this, the rest of the draft lottery will be placed according to their record. So a team like OKC is GUARANTEED to be no less than the #2 pick in this system. So if Utah wins the tourney, this is your top 5 in the Draft lottery: 1) Utah 2) OKC 3) Washington 4) Minnesota 5) Charlotte - This would give a team that might be on the brink of making the playoffs, a chance to get a player who could be an immeadiate impact player, instead of a mid 1st-round player who may or may not start. - You could play all of this out in the days before the NBA playoff start. NBA season usually ends on a Wednesday. Play-in games could be played on Thursday and Friday nights. 8-team tournament could take place Sun, Mon, and Tue . . then crank the NBA Playoffs up that Wednesday night.

I thought Bibby would struggle, allowing Acie to play more. But Bibby is arguably playing some of his best basketball since those days in which the Kings were challenging for the Western Conference Title. He's well deserving of the 34 min/game he's playing this season. One of the major things that I don't think people realize on this board, is that it's not like Smith, Horford, and Williams are exactly fully developed as players yet. So if they're not in foul trouble, I have no problem playing them 35+ minutes a night too. Solo did his job. When Smith went down, he came in and played pretty decent. But when Smith is healthy, there's just not enough room for Solo at the PF or C spot . . . unless you're an advocate of Zaza seeing less minutes. Zaza is our only big body banger. So on those nights when we play bigger frontlines, he'll get to play extended minutes. West doesn't deserve any PT. The only question is if this team would be better off with Acie getting all of Flip's minutes or not. For the minutes Flip plays, he's a turnover machine. But he's also proven to be the one other guy on this team that can not only create his own shot, but drive to the hole as well. Offensively, Flip is just more versatile than Acie is right now. And he's just as good defensively as Acie. Acie is a far better playmaker. The only way Acie is really going to get a chance to prove himself, is if Bibby starts to fall off the map . . or get hurt. If an when that happens, it's up to Acie to take full advantage of the situation.

Like I said a few weeks back . . . The minute we become a good team, people will still complain about Woody, because we're not a GREAT team. Woody will never get the credit he deserves on this board, unless we get to the Eastern Conference Finals. And we bet not lose in less than 5 games when we get there. If we do, people will blame him for it. It'll always be something with Woody that keeps people from giving him his props . . just like it is with Marvin.

Stat of the week: Only 5 coaches in the NBA has held the same head coaching position on the same team, longer than Woody. They are . . . Jerry Sloan ( UTA ) Gregg Popovich ( SAS ) Phil Jackson ( LAL ) Mike Dunleavy ( LAC ) Lawrence Frank ( NJ ) Woody = Survivor . . . . even if he didn't deserve to survive this long.

Ex . . . just let it go man. You know you won't win this argument. It's just funny that the "usual" suspects that are always dogging the Hawks, come out every time . . . EVERY TIME . . when they lose or someone makes a bad play to cost us a loss. After a win . . . crickets from them. They can't say too much on a negative slant because of the win . . and they DAMN SURE ain't going to say much positive . . . so they usually stay silent after a win. So I know why this irritates you. It's typical Hawksquawk though.

LOL . . . tell that to Doc Rivers, defending him like how Detroit used to defend Jordan. The "JJ Rules".

I gotta disagree Teke. I didn't think he looked uncomfortable at all. He looked like he always looked. I think he was as shocked as anybody that he missed the FT. What happened . . was that Dominique put the "whammy" on him before he shot that last FT, talking about "I have no doubt that JJ is going to make this FT. He's a clutch player." He did the same thing in the Boston game in November . . talking about . . "We're gonna get a stop. We're gonna get a stop." ( in reference to stopping Boston and winning the game, after Marvin hit the 3 to put us up 1 ) LOL . . blame Nique.

THIS is exactly what I've been talking about, when I say that he should play like Shawn Kemp and not like Rasheed Wallace or Rashard Lewis. Now THAT was a Shawn Kemp-esque type play and dunk. Fug all of those weak finger rolls going to the hoop. Go hard and DUNK ON SOMEBODY, OR MAKE THEM FOUL YOU!! He could do that at least 3 - 4 times a game, and either make the dunk or draw the foul . . . or both. With Smith playing the 4, he has a decisive quickness advantage going to the hole over most other 4's. If he's going to the hole like that, most people aren't going to stand in his way, for fear of being poserized . . . just like how they get out of LeBron's way when he goes hard to the hole.

I still say that the Suns were crazy for breaking that team up after one season. I know they did it for money reasons, but that just proves that the Suns owner wasn't serious about winning a title. As long as he could put an entertaining product on the floor, and the people kept coming to see them play, he could've cared less about a title. And it's so funny. They let JJ get away from them, and they traded away Shawn Marion . . . but end up trading for a hybrid of those 2 in J-Rich, trying to replace some of the athleticism, long range shooting, and shot creating ability they lost. LOL . . and they STILL don't have an adequate backup for Nash. Thank you Phoenix, for not wanting to pay JJ.