TheNorthCydeRises

Quote: ...how Houston is on this unprecedented streak with T-Mac and a bunch of moderate (albeit spirited) role players, while we have this suite of first round talent and nothing really to show for it? Steve Novak? Mike Harris? Chuck Hayes? A close to 50-Dikembe? It's more rhetorical, but perhaps you all can shed some light... Because they play D-E-F-E-N-S-E ... D-E-F-E-N-S-E !!! T-Mac has been playing superstar MVP like during this run. Dikembe defends the paint and rebounds. Battier is close to a lockdown defender. Chuck Hayes, while undersized, rebounds and plays defense. Even "Skip to my Lou" aka Rafer Alston, has been playing the point well and defending. Luis Scola looks like he's the ish these days. I wish we'd had either Luis or Chuck, over Zaza oteven Chill. I think you mean Mike James, instead of Mike Harris. And another thing about that team, is they can shoot the 3, which of course is bad news for us. At least we shouldn't be sending any double teams toward Dikembe tomorrow night. Hopefully T-Mac will have one of those 8 - 23 FG games that he used to have before this streak

(( taking like Rick Pitino )) "Tree Rollins isn't coming through that door folks. Dikembe Mutumbo isn't coming through that door." To play Smoove at the 3, and Horford at the 4, means Zaza or Solo has to play the 5, and Marvin goes to the bench. The Hawks do what they have to do. Smoove and Zaza may not like it, but you won't see Horford complain about playing center. He knows that, for the good of the team, he has to play there.

Quote: I'm sick of hearing about how tired these guys are. They're ALL in their mid-early 20's with the exception of Bibby. All of Detroit's starters play 31+MPG and they're alot older. Pretty much the same thing for SA. Three if the Warriors starters play over 37MPG. Boston has four starters playing 31+MPG aswell. Hot, you and Anakin have just proven what I've been saying ever since they've mde a commitment to increase the tempo of the game. ( and this is before even Bibby came onto the scene ) But people think I'm the crazy one when I suggest that this team should just SLOW DOWN altogether. I record and re-watch these games. I see what is happening to these guys. * * * * * Anakin, fatigue is DEFINITELY a factor in all of this. When you basically have to depend on 6 guys to get it done on both ends of the court, you're usually going to have guys who get worn down as the season progresses. JJ is our offense, Smoove is our defensive deterrent, and Horford is our rebounding. If ANY of these 3 guys get in foul trouble, or get winded, ish usually falls apart for us. When we play at a faster pace, the offense looks better, but we give it right back on defense. And because we're even MORE of a jumpshooting team than ever before, if our jumpers don't fall for even a 4 - 5 stretch, we run the risk of seeing a lead baloon 8+ more points than it should. Long missed jumpers turn into potential fast break points for our opponents. It also keeps us off the FT line. We didn't even shoot 15 FTs last night as a team. JJ looks better on offense, probably because he doesn't have to handle the ball nearly as much with Bibby here. But you can see that the increased pace has mde him a little lazier on the defensive end. * * * * * Hot, the major difference between us, and teams like Det,SA, ad Bos, is that those teams are NOT going to let their opponent dictate the pace of the game. If you're a running team, they're going to make it a point to slow you down, by securing the boards and drivng on yiu to possibly draw fouls. Those teams also possess more than solid bench players who can get it done on a nightly basis. Our best bench player, Chill, can't even say that he's able to "bring it" on a nightly basis. Their bench enables their star guys to get adequate rest every night. I would love to know how many 38+ minute nights than any of the Bos, SA, or Det guys have had, compared to Smoove and JJ. If we had a Jason Maxiell, a James Posey, or a Robert Horry to bring off our bench, we'd be so much better off. You're right though Hot. The players and the fans, need to place more blame on the effort of the players these days. But on the flip side, they may be trying to give the effort, but just can't kick it in when they need it the most.

Quote: Shut your trap. Everyone wants us to play D and run. We do neither. LOL . . you shut YOUR trap. How many teams in this league play defense AND run? we play exactly how the Memphis Grizzlies play. All season long, the vast majority of Hawksquawk has wanted this team to emulate Phoenix and Golden St. Well, now we're doing it., kinda And we're defending like those 2 teams do too. But we're nowhere as good offensively, so we still lose. But this is what you guys wanted . . that quick "chuck and duck" style of play. You're the main one always crying about our offense. We played a good offensive game tonight, on the road, and still lost. It's a damn shame when you shoot over 50% FG and over 60% from 3, and still basically get blown out.

Quote: Teams that don't play defense actually RUN so they can score to make up for it. We don't do either. The saddest part? Our coach's specialty is supposed to be DEFENSE This is exactly the style of play that the vast majority of you wanted the Hawks to start playing. Let's play fast. Let's shoot 3's. If we become a better offensive team., the defense won't matter as much. Don't whine and cry now about defense.

It's because player efficiency is mainly an offensive stat. It's pretty obvious that this team lives and dies with how JJ is scoring. No other player on the team can really consistently pick up the scoring slack, when he's struggling. That's the difference between our team, and most of the teams who are playoff contenders right now.

Quote: ...because the price of being right in this instance is a heavy on for the Hawks, particularly if they do not realize it soon like many HS fans have not. I feel like I'm closer to 100% right. Gasol COULD have been that guy for us. His addition with JS would have given us a top 2 player EFF of 22.00 instead of 19.04. That EFF would have been 10th in the league for the top 2 players on a team. In the EC we could have likely been a 3-4 seed next year all other things remaining similar. We went the Bibby route instead (13.27). I'm simply not that impressed no matter the name. And the cost wasn't that different for the two. W You're only 75% right because you're only looking at this from an efficency standpoint only. Efficiency is a decent stat to look at for evaulating individual players, but you can't use it to see how well a team plays defensively. And that's been one of the major problems with the Hawks for about 2 months now. Our offense has improved recently, but we still lose because we're having major problems defending people. I never thought that would be a major problem this year. As much as people whine about our offense, it's actually those pizz poor defensive quarters that have been killing us. When you look at Detroit, they're not a team that is going to have individual players with high efficiency numbers. But they win because they play excellent defense on most nights. Chicago won last year, because of their effort on the defensive end. This year, they're struggling to defend and score. The efficiency numbers only tell part of the story with us. When we let short-handed teams without their key guys beat us, that's more to do with our horrible mindset as a basketball team, than our lack of highly efficient players. No way we should be dropping games to Seattle, or the Clips without Maggette and Kaman, or Charlotte without Gerald Wallace, or routinely losing 15 point leads in the 2nd half. If we were even a halfway decent defensive team these days, we'd be at least a .500 team right now. As a team, we just break down way too frequently on defense.

I say 75%, because it's hard to base this just off of your top 2 guys. And since basketball is a team game, there are many other factors that the stats may or may not show, that enables a team to win or lose. HOWEVA . . Like Walter said, this is a superstar/star league. And most NBA Championship caliber teams have at least 2 all-star caliber players, plus a very good #3 guy, that leads them to victory night. I wonder what Walter's assessment would look like, if he'd taken the top 3 EFF guys off of each team. That would give people a better perspective on what he's talking about. Here's the problem with the Hawks. JJ and Smoove have completely opposite roles on the team. Smoove is the all-around stat stuffer that affects games more from a defensive standpoint. JJ is the offensive star, whose efficiency is based almost solely what he can do on the offensive end. But the main problem with JJ and Smoove is, unlike other teams, these two tend to not have good games at the same time. When JJ is on, very rarely will you see Smoove be on. And vice versa. One of the strangest things pointed out by JackB this season, is that when Smoove has a big scoring game, we almost always lose. And Walter, this very thing is the reason why I wasn't as hard on Woody, than the vast majority of Hawksquawk. Regardless of Woody's system, it doesn't cause them to miss wide open jumpers. It doesn't cause them to make all of those silly turnovers that they make. It doesn't cause them to not block out to secure rebounds. That's ALL on the players. Bibby is a tremendous upgrade over AJ. The ofense has been better since he's been here. But with Bibby not 100%, he's Lue-like on defense. Without Acie to kind of balance things out at the point, it's hard to measure Bibby's true effect on this team. Our guys are wildly inconsistent. Just look at JJ's EFF number. Of the players Walter listed, only Rasheed Wallace has a lower EFF. Marvin was consistent in Nov - Dec, but now even he is struggling right now. Smoove is easily the most overrated player on this team. Overrated in the sense that people believe that he is more than just a good player. A lot of Hawk fans think he's at all-star level. The vast majority of all-stars in this league, are great ofensive players. Smoove just isn't that type of player. He's a Shawn Marion-like all-star. Definitely important to his team, but not good enough offensively to consistently carry his team. Marvin is a close 2nd in being the most overrated. Childress, while efficient, is also wildly inconsistent. He can score 20 points one game, and 5 the next. JJ is the same way. He's our main guy offensively. But because he's not the type to get to the line a lot, a bad shooting game is made much worse because he can't get some of those points back at the line. Other main guys can go 7 - 19 FG, but still get 22 - 25 points, because they're still getting to the line, and hitting 8 or more FTs. If JJ goes 7 - 19 FG, he MIGHT get to 18 - 20 points. You guys can argue with Walter by him just using the top 2 players to make his case. But his argument that we have overrated our talent, is pretty much dead on. That's why a coaching change may or may not improve our situation. The players either have to improve and stop doing the things that kill this team on a nightly basis, or we have to obtain better players who won't kill us.

Smoove is not better than Marion right now. Josh is wildly inconsistent as a player right now. But he's young, so you'd have to figure that he'd eventually grow into a more consistent player. - Shawn has a much better jumpshot, with good range out to the 3-point line. - He's a better rebounder, especially on the defensive end - He's a much better on the ball defender - He's a lot tougher than Smoove - Josh is a better shot blocker and can change games and alter shots with the threat of the block - He's better at taking the ball to the hole and getting to the line. Josh could definitely be better than Shawn. But if he's going to play PF, he has to get much tougher as a player both mentally and physically.

Quote: One good thing about the trade is that if Bibby continues to struggle like he has the last several games his contract should be of value for a trade in the offseason. The question is who would be willing to give up an impact player for his contract in the offseason? So far I haven't seen enough to say that he is a keeper. Like I said in another thread, I think the solution is to bring Bibby off the bench, and let Acie start. That way, Bibby can concentrate more on being a scorer, and worry less about trying to make all the plays. Most important, Acie is far and away the better defender. So he probably does need to start each half. Let Bibby play the 1 and the 2, like Cassell did in LA and like JT used to do in Dallas.

Quote: Quote: Quote: I just hope that these wins give us that confidence to win the next game. The next game? LOL . . ummmm, you might want to take a peek at who we play next. a team weve owned the last couple of games. Well, seeing that we've "owned" them recently, what % chance do you give the Hawks of beating them?

Quote: I just hope that these wins give us that confidence to win the next game. The next game? LOL . . ummmm, you might want to take a peek at who we play next.

Did you hear about what Riley is thinking about doing? On 1st and 10 yesterday morning, they talked about Riley taking "time off" to go watch some NCAA tournament games, so that he can scout some of the kids who will be entering the draft. LOL . . are you serious? An NBA head coach taking time off to watch college kids? This is just another reason why not to replay this 50 seconds tonight. Even Riley doesn't care about this team anymore. The league is just doing this just to spite us.

Quote: No matter what the do in the offseason, if they don't fire Woody this season is a COMPLETE waste. It should p!ss people off to no end that ASG is willing to just p!ss away a season while accomplishing NOTHING. I wonder if a decision to fire Woody, has to be a unaminous one by the owners? If so, it might be in Belkin's best interest to keep Woody as head coach through the rest of the season, to make this team, and the ASG look as bad as possible. But that's just a conspiracy theory. Here's what I think is happening. I'm thinking that these fools were waiting for someone else to fire THEIR coach first. Namely the Nets, with them firing Lawrence Frank. He's the only coach in a somewhat comparable situation that Woody is in. But that's not going to happen as long as the Nets hold that 8th spot, even though it should. I also think that if there is some sort of rift between Gearon Jr. and BK, firing Woody would be admitting that BK was indeed right in recommending that Woody get the axe. This may be simply an ego thing between the owners who have seen BK bring in some of the wrong pieces, and now don't fully trust him . . and a GM who thinks he knows everything. Acie Law is officially Obi-Wan-Kenobi now . . his play is our only hope of saving this season.

Here's what is crazy. Because the Hawks and Nets have played horribly for about 2 months now, EVERYBODY except the Knicks and Heat, are VERY MUCH in the hunt for that 8th spot. Charlotte, by beating us and with Jersey losing, is only a mere 3 GAMES out of that 8th spot. All of those teams that we were comfortably ahead of . . Chicago, Indy, Charlotte, and even Milwaukee, are ALL thinking they have a shot at the playoffs now. All of those teams, including us, are within 3 games of Jersey. So none of those teams are going to tank. Even if we had a pick, we wouldn't tank.

This is all assuming that the ASG doesn't do the most dramatic thing to shake up the Hawks, and still refuse to fire Woody. 1) Start Acie Law. This is not a slight toward Bibby, seeing that Bibby will be in the game at the end on most nights. But if you start Law, you put a better defensive presence in the game at the point, to start each half. In the limited minutes he's played with the starting group, he's played well. Once Law comes back, a concerted effort should be made to play him 25 - 30 minutes a game, with the vast majority of those minutes coming with JJ, Al, Marv, and Smoove . Law's role should be exactly like Shawn Livingston's with the Clippers, the year he was the starting PG, and Cassell was the backup/closing PG. He was the better defender, and the heir to the PG throne with the Clips. That's why he was the starter. 2) Use Bibby like Boston will use Cassell. Right now, Bibby should be treated as a hired gun/playmaker. He can be that scorer and playmaker off the bench that can and will play the 1 and the 2. Against the 2nd teamers, Bibby could possibly be an instant offense type player. At the end of games, you can opt to play Bibby. Don't automatically play Bibby at the end all the time, but have him be your finisher if need be. Between playing the 1 and the 2, Bibby could still get his 30 minutes a game. 3) Only double GREAT scorers. There's nothing more irritating to see, than the Hawks doubling average to mediocre post scorers, leaving a 3 point shooter wide open. For the 3rd consecutve game, our opponent has shot a large volume of 3s, and has hit over 50% of them. No way we can win playing defense like that. I DO NOT want to see one of our players scrambling to double Udonis Haslem tomorrow night. 4) SLOW THE (( BLEEP )) DOWN, and play more efficiently on both ends of the court!! We may be bettter offensively ( points-wise ), but we're also wearing down more physically and mentally, by trying to play fast, uptempo, or whatever you want to call it, with this barely 8-man rotation. Fatigue, both mental and physical, may be one of the culprits in our 2nd half collaspes, along with coaching mistakes. Like someone wrote in another thread, it's the little things that are killing us recently. Things that should be easily correctable, are causing us major problems. The Golden St. game reminded me so much of what Loyola Marymount used to do to teams As a ballplayer, it's kind of natural to want to play that style. But when you play that way, things can get very sloppy. But when you play that way all the time, you'll be a lot more efficent playing that style. LMU used to just wear down people, and blow them out at the end because their opponent just couldn't play at that pace. That's exactly what happened when they beat Michigan in the Sweet 16. And G-State did the same thing to us the other night. * * * * * And that's what it comes down to . . efficiency. Fast or slow, just try to be efficient offensively, not careless. We're a very careless team these days, with all of the stupid mistakes and bad turnovers. Then play defense on the other end regardless of the outcome on the offensive end. We were doing this at the beginning of the year, even when we were playing like crap on offense. Our defense kept us in most games and we were able to pull some of them out. Even when I was backing Woody, I've always said that he was a very stubborn coach. He doesn't believe in shaking things up a bit, to see if it can make the team better. It's time for a shakeup to see if different lineups can produce different results. [cliche] But at the end of the day, [/cliche] the ultimate shakeup to try to change things, would be to fire the coach. Firing the GM right now, really wouldn't have an effect on the current product on the floor. And we can't trade for anybody. So the only thing that will help us, are a coaching change, or Woody putting a different mix in the lineup.

LOL . . that's incredible. the first team to 33 wins, will probably get that 8th seed. Even Jon Barry was just talking about how bad the East is. He's the color commentator on the Bulls - Celtics game. After questioning the effort of the Bulls, he mentions the fact that Atlanta and Toronto dropped another game, he says . . "you just can't figure out the Eastern Conference." Lil Gearon and Bruce Wayne need to talk with the players ONLY tomorrow. Talk to them individually first, then talk to them as a group. Then you fire Woody and BK, since Gearon wants to run the team anyway. Hell, might as well make him the coach too. Be an owner/GM/coach. The prroblem with this team, is that they have no identity and no swagger to them. They want to play fast, but can't do it efficently. They want to play defense, but have lost that commitment to play it all the time. And Woody doesn't have a solution to make this team better.

Quote: I have defended BK in the sense that the ownership mess is beyound the pale; however, BK has made several mistakes. Don't begruge the CP pick so much as not slecting Roy. A Roy-JJ backcourt would have been phenomenal. But neither of those guys are PGs. Roy isn't the PG in Portland. Plus, Roy didn't even want to work out for us. And something else everyone seems to routinely forget. The guy that was supposed to be the combo guard in that draft who was capable of playing the point, was Randy Foye, not Roy. He was also the guy who could DEFEND the position. So it's not Roy that BK should've taken if he didn't want a big, it was Foye. Foye was the other guy that some mocks had us taking, before the Shelden "promise". I don't remember one mock ever have us taking Roy. People make the mistake in thinking that Roy would develop the same way here, as he did in Portland. The only way he does, is if he started ahead of Chill in the lineup, then proved himself enough to not be taken out of the lineup in December. I say that, because Marvin missed 1/4th of last season. If we had Roy, instead of Shelden, this is your starting lineup to begin the year last year: Speedy JJ Chill ( or Roy ) Smoove Zaza So when Marvin returns, what then? ( also remember that Roy hurt his foot a few games into the season last year. ) It's easy to do the hindsight 20/20 thing. I wonder how many will do it with Horford though, seeing how a good majority of the board wanted Yi or Conley.

Quote: Let me ask you a question. The other day, I laughed hard at Steven A. Smith. He was talking about Kwame Brown being traded to Memphis and he said "this man is a bonafide scrubb!!" watch it hear... He also said that Kwame doesn't have the heart or the passion to be good. Is this the GM who picked him fault?? When Jordan looked at Kwame, he saw a 7 foot guy, about 270 who was young and skilled. Is it his fault forever that Kwame never played up to his potential? When is the right time that you can criticize a player for not having the heart or the passion to live up to his potential? Hell yeah you blame Jordan. 1) because he shouldn't have picked Kwame in the first place, and 2) they didn't throw that kid into the fie right away. When your picking #1, you damn well better be picking a guy who is not only ready to play right away, but also have damn near guaranteed minutes waiting for him. That 2001 draft, I think, had Kwame, Curry, Chandler, and Diop going in the top 10. All 4 of those guys were high school players. Meanwhile, you had a young, established European big man ( Gasol ), a dynamic wing player who had a won a National Title ( J-Rich ), and a Duke guy that everybody loved for his solid, all-around game ( Battier ) who were immeadiately ready to play. But he chose probably the worst big man of the class in Kwame. Hell yeah that's Jordan's fault. He proved that he couldn't properly evaulate talent, with the Morrison pick. Marvin definitely isn't beyond criticism. He can be a much better ballplayer if he continues to work on different aspects of his game. He needs to decide what kind of a player he wants to be. If he's going to be a Glen Rice type of player, he has to add tthe 3-ball to his game. If he wants to be a slasher, he needs to get even stronger and learn to finish a little better in traffic . . something he was doing well in the beginning of the year.

Quote: Really, what do some of you want him to say? This is a guy that no matter how well he plays, he gets criticized endlessly by a bunch of fans who don't know what they are talking about. Fans that completely make up criticisms such as your clumsiness comment or the recent idea that Marvin cannot create his own shot. Marvin just came off a game where he scored 20 points on 50% shooting, but you didn't hear a damn peep out of any of you who constantly are berating him endlessly. Let him make one mistake on the floor though, and the guy is the worst player this league has ever seen. That's why I kind of went off the deep end last night during halftime of that Warrior game. All of that BS about JJ not being this or that. Then he has one one of the best halves in franchise history, and there's hardly a peep about that. But let him miss a few shots and have a few stupid turnovers, and they come out the woodwork to whine and cry and belittle the guy. It's happened to every single player on this team, outside of maybe Acie. Acie has gotten a pass from the majority of Hawksquawk, including myself. But here's a legit question about Marvin's situation. If he were in Milwaukee, or New Orleans, or Utah, would he be a better player under a different system, coach, and teammates? Conversely, what would a Deron look like under Woody? Paul? Personally, I think Paul would be OK. He wouldn't be a potential MVP candidate, but he'd still be good. Deron though, Deron might be a mess in Woody's system. It took a while for Deron to take control in Utah, so there's no telling how Woody would've treated Deron. And Stockton worked with Deron after his rookie season. Who would've helped Deron here? Spud? Morlon Wiley? Players have to be in the right situation, in order to maximize their potential. The vast majority of #2 picks are thrust into being one of the main guys right off the bat. And they usually don't have to compete for their starting job. It's usually already open or handed to them. Marvin, Darko, and Tyus Thomas were all guys who had more talented guys playing in front of them in their rookie years. The GMs on those teams are more to blame for their lack of development, than anybody else. If Marvin is drafted to replace Harrington, then get rid of him right off the bat . . like Seattle did with Ray Allen concerning Durant. BK pretty much wasted a entire year of development with Marvin at the 3, and frankly with Josh Smith at the 4, by keeping Harrington around as long as he did. I mean, even look what happened with Horford. His constant improvement is due to the fact that he was thrusted into the starting lineup right away. God forbid that Zaza was healthy to start the year. Woody may have suppressed Al, in favor of going with Zaza for 25 - 30 minutes a night. That's exactly what happened with Acie, with him not playing signifcant minutes behind AJ and Lue. If he's the starter from the beginning, there's no telling how far along he'd be right now. We might not even trade for Bibby. But with Bibby here, his development may also be slowed, and his ultimate potential may not be realized. Meanwhile, Conley is getting valuable minutes in Memphis, even though they lose on most nights. This time next year, people will be talking about how good Conley looks, compared to Acie, who will be Bibby's backup. They made sure they got rid Damon's azz, so that Conley could develop as fast as possible.

Memphis definitely helped us out tonight. I think Vince Carter only had like 8 or 10 points.

Quote: They could start by boxing out. NO has 6 offensive rebounds already. Guarding the 3 pt line would be nice too. childress is late getting out to the shooters every time. Everyone Childress gets near winds up scoring. LOL . . you sure are all over Chill lately. The bad thing is . . you're telling the truth. Horford is the only guy that actually boxes out on this whole entire squad. If Smoove did it, he'd be a dominant rebounder. If Marvin, JJ, or Chill did it, they'd be much more efficent rebounders. Especially Marvin. Well, we're "only" down 9. It could've been a lot worse.

Everybody always complain about the lack of adjustments madeby Woody to open the 2nd half. Well, now is your chance to be the coach. As this 2nd qtr goes on, assess what the Hawks need to do to pull this game out. - what offensve strategy should we use? - what defensive strategy should we use? - what lineup do we need to start the 2nd half with? - who should see more or less PT in the 2nd half? - If youi can think of anything else, name it? Make your "adjustments" before the 3rd qtr starts.

Quote: lol Hawks at it again. Bam! Right on cue. Just so fake. Why even pretend to actually care about this team?

This is such a FAKE AZZ FAN BASE. JJ scores 29 (( bleepin )) points in the 1st half, and the only mention about it during this thread, is about him actually NOT trying to do the exact same thing, because the Warriors will double him . . like JJ doesn't PASS the ball when need be. Let Smoove, Marvin, or Chill even put up 15 in a half, and people are slobbering all over them. Such fakeness. I kind of hope JJ misses his first 3 or 4 shots, just to see how some of you woul react. And SmoooveTheFuture, this isn't necessarily directed at you. This is directed at all of those fake azz Hawks fans that down a layer when they're playing bad, but don't even give them props when they're playing welll. It's the same ish that KG went through in his last year in Minny. Such a fake azz fan base this is. That's why no one cares about the Hawks.