TheNorthCydeRises

WOW . . JJ got a tech? Please tell me it was illegal defense, and not him going off on an official? NOt JJ . . lol.

88 points wins this game. Remember that number.

People who watch the Hawks should know better to not give up on this game yet. LOL . . we might not win, but we'll probably make a run to get it real close. People act like this is their first Hawk game that they've watched or followed on the net. Down 15 now . . LOL.

Quote: (( clapping like Tennessee's football coach, Philip Fulmer, as the Hawks go off the floor and head to the locker room . . nodding head )) "That's OK guys. That's OK. We're only down 4, and we got a whole half to play. We'll get em when we come back out." Then he goes to the locker room, and cusses everybody out. Hawks win by 13. Ummm . . . I meant that we'd be down 13, before we made our run . . LOL @ this.

(( clapping like Tennessee's football coach, Philip Fulmer, as the Hawks go off the floor and head to the locker room . . nodding head )) "That's OK guys. That's OK. We're only down 4, and we got a whole half to play. We'll get em when we come back out." Then he goes to the locker room, and cusses everybody out. Hawks win by 13.

Stats of the night so far: Chicago hasn't shot a FT yet. Not one. Hawks are -17 in the rebounding category 16 - 33 in favor of the Bulls

Wow . . what an ugly game. JJ needs to go on one of those 4 - 5 FG shooting flurrys to close out this quarter.

OK . . here's another way of looking at this. Teams with winning records are in bold. There are 12 total. 5 in the East, 7 in the West. RNK Team Pace 1 Denver 103 2 Phoenix 101.4 3 Seattle 101.3 4 Indiana 100.7 5 Golden State 100 6 L.A. Lakers 99.2 7 Utah 99.2 8 Memphis 98.7 9 L.A. Clippers 97.6 10 Cleveland 97.3 11 Orlando 96.8 12 Washington 96.5 13 Chicago 96.4 14 Sacramento 95.8 15 New York 95.4 16 Boston 95.3 17 New Jersey 94.4 18 Dallas 94 19 Houston 94 20 Charlotte 94 21 Toronto 93.8 22 Milwaukee 93.7 23 Minnesota 93.6 24 Portland 93.2 25 Philadelphia 93.1 26 New Orleans 92.6 27 Detroit 92.5 28 Miami 92.4 29 San Antonio 92.3 30 Atlanta 92.3 We're definitely not uptempo, because our offense has been so bad. Plus, we turn the ball over stupidly because we're trying to play too fast. Persnally, I like the fact that we're right where San Antonio is, than where Phoenix is. We have a much greater chance of becoming a good defensive team that can get critical stops, than becoming a good uptempo team that runs every chance they get.

Quote: Quote: Quote: This kid has something special around him. It's called hype and it doesn't last. ...and frankly, I don't see how he got it. That NCAA title was a team effort. Al is a good, prototypical NBA Pf, but he isn't an NBA center and he is does not have superstar potential nor is he a mismatch advantage no matter where you play him (much less at center). Horford was "the player most like SW" in this year's draft, the good and bad of it. I wish we learned from our mistakes. W LOL . . maybe you should ask Billy Donovan about the player he could do most without. And Noah received far more "hype" than Al did. But when people actually started watching Al play, and the different skill sets he brought to the table, it was obvious who was the better player.

Quote: The biggest come from behind victory the Hawks had last year was in Denver when they put Shelden at C for the whole 4th quarter and made up a 20 pt deficit. The Hawks switched to a zone defense in that game, around the 8 - 9 minute mark. Salim, Lue, JJ, Smoove, and Shelden were on the floor.Shelden deflected passes, rebounded the ball well that quarter, and made the game-winning play at the end.His stat line?7 points ( 2-3 FG . . 3-5 FT )3 rebounds4 stealsIf you just look at the box score at his stats, he didn't do much, other than the steals. If you watched the game, you'd see that he had a tremendous impact in that game, especially in the 4th quarter.And that's basically what you have to do with Horford. He's not going to put up big numbers statistically, so you have to see the effect he has on games. So far, I'd give him a grade of B, for the job he's done at center for us.Without Horford, we could EASILY be 2 - 9 right now, instead of 5 - 7. Easily. His work on the boards is one of the key reasons why this season isn't a total disaster right now.While he definitely needs to be better offensively, he's been more than solid on the defensive end. But with like everybody in this league, it's hard to stop or even slow down good to great offensive players. I'm not going to bash him for not slowing down KG or Al Jefferson, because honestly, both of those guys are having all-star caliber years to this point.As far as Shelden vs Horford. It's Horford hands down. To me, when you watch Horford play, he just plays smarter and harder than Shelden. Horford can do more things more efficiently as a player, than Shelden.What I want to see, is if Shelden can step up his game to finally put ZaZa deep on the bench. Horford is doing this year to ZaZa, what I thought Shelden could do to ZaZa last year, and that is take minutes away from him. While Woody will still affectionally start ZaZa at times, ZaZa isn't the one finishing games on most nights . . it's Horford. Eventually, ZaZa will be completely phased out, especially if he continues to struggle offensively.

Gray, it's been pretty obvious to me for the past 2 years, that both players and coaches have to take responsibility for what is going on here. Add the GM to that mix as well. Most people want the Hawks to be something that they're not . . a "pretty-playing" uptempo team, that can use their athleticism to score on anybody. We don't shoot the ball well enough to play like that. We don't have the shooters that a Phoenix, a Golden St, hell . . even a Milwaukee has. For us to even start thinking about playing fast, we have to DEFEND first. And the sub-element to that, is securing REBOUNDS. The fan base is a reflection of how the players think about the game. They want to play fast, but they don't want to put in the work on the defensive end the entire game, to play like that. They want to eat the cake, but they don't want to bake it. It's funny though. People can constantly point out the flaws of the individual veteran players on this team: - JJ takes too many jumpers when cold, and almost refuses to drive the ball to the hole to draw fouls. - Marvin, while playinig better, still isn't aggressive enough on the offensive end. - Smoove takes too many jumpshots that he knows that he can't make and tries to do too much. - Lue dribbles out the clock, then tries to make a play with 5 seconds left . . which usually ends up in an ineffective play. - Shelden, for whatever reason, isn't doing the dirty work we need him to do. - ZaZa still tries to do everything one on one, and doesn't make an effort to defend. - AJ is too old and slow to effectively run the team. - Childress fades in and out with his aggressiveness, and needs to be completely wide open to make a jumper. Yet, with all of these things that you can point out with individual players, the blame almost ALWAYS goes on Woody. I guess the mindset is that a good coach can get these guys to stop doing these things. Well, look at the Knicks. Larry Brown, the supposed "miracle worker of NBA coaches", couldn't get that bunch to do what he wanted on the defensive end, and look where they ended up. And this is why I've always maintained that Woody is an AVERAGE coach, not a good, nor a bad coach. It's obvious that when you watch the Hawks, that a lot of these guys get into "comfort zones" that they don't want to get out of. It seems as if that the light comes on, only when they get behind. That's when you see the defensive pressure pick up. That's when you see everybody crashing the boards. That's when you see everybody trying to get to the hole to either get a lay-up, or get to the line. That's what Woodson preaches to these guys on a nightly basis. But they just don't follow what he says all the time, because that takes them out of their comfort zones as a player. JJ's nature isn't to become a slasher that shoots both jumpers and get to the hole. Smoove's nature isn't to mix it up on the inside with the big boys. Marvin's nature isn't to drive the ball to the hole. But that's what they have to do, in order to become more consistent and win games. The greatest coach in women's basketball history, Pat Summitt, agrees with Woody. If you want to win, you have to rebound and defend FIRST. If you do that, you'll create easier offensive opportunities for yourself that will make the game easier.

I was reading the Sqawk early this morning ( like 4 am early ), via cellphone, while drivng 3 hours back from Memphis. After I saw that the Hawks had came back and won that game, I wanted to read the Minny vs ATL thread to see all of the reactions. LOL . . hilarious stuff. But the whole timing of Sothron's post was disturbing. Some of you picked up on the timing. While others just went right along with what he was saying, and took it as complete gospel. ( And this is why I will NEVER advocate tanking, under any circumstances. It's just anti-fan to me. ) I've never had an opinion one way or another about Sothron's posts regarding inside information. I always took it as a grain of salt. But last night, I had the immeadiate reaction that jerrywest had. Why in the world would he post that? BHaley, I had the exact same thoughts as you did. To me, it's pretty obvious that national media types view this board. The comments made on here seem to always "leak out" as some groundbreaking news, when some national media writer speaks on it. To post something like that, not only undermines the Hawks as an organization even more, it undermines the players. I forgot who said this, but someone last night stated that if this team was actually implementing this plan, why even go to pay to see games? I drive 300 miles to and from ATL about 5 - 10 times a year, mainly to see the Hawks. I plan to be in the building Friday night, to watch the Hornets. (( and now I have incentive to stay the entire weekend, to cheer on my Vols against LSU. Congrats to the Vols )) But if this is true, why would I as a fan go to watch a team that is obviously not trying to win, just to get a coach fired? I'm hoping that Sothron's "source" was just saying this to him, after seeing how the Hawks came out the gate last night. LOL @ Diesel's account of the situation. Actually, I hope Diesel is right in the sense that Soth's source was just "playing him". I think "stupid" doesn't give that post justice last night. I think it was reckless. That's the type of "insider information" that I definitely don't believe, or don't want to believe. And it shouldn't even be spoken about, unless you can absolutely PROVE it. It was completely reckless.

Quote: If you look at Smith's line in terms of possessions, I think you can see some interesting things: +4 --> 4 possessions ended in him scoring 2 pts. -13 --> 13 possessions ended in him missing +2 --> 4 possessions continued by off. rebounds ***Times 0.5, assuming 1/2 of those led to scores +7 --> 7 def. rebounds end Heat possessions +2 --> 4 assists ***Times 0.5, assuming 1/2 were player-dependent -3 --> 3 turnovers = ending possessions +1 --> 2 blocks ***Times 0.5, assuming 1/2 resulted in end of Heat possession +4 --> 8 FT's made ***Times 0.5, due to value of FT vs. FG -2 --> 4 FT's missed ***Times 0.5, due to value of FT vs. FG -2 --> 4 fouls ***Times 0.5, assuming 1/2 of continued Heat possessions led to scores Total = 0 He equaled himself out tonight. Good breakdown MrH. So a 0 = a grade of C. And since he made the block at the end, I'll toss him a bonus point, and give him a C+

While the shooting was terrible, he did everything else how he should have done it. He played defense. He REALLY hit the boards. 11 rebounds with 4 being offensive rebounds ( something he hardly ever does ). And he got the key block at the end. Smith's 4th quarter: 2 points ( 0 - 3 FG but 2 big free throws ) 4 rebounds 1 HUGE block

Quote: In completely unrelated news, Calderon struggles from the field (4-13), but hits 2 threes, grabs 4 rebounds, and gets 8 assists to just two turnovers as the starter for Toronto. In even more unrelated news, Biendrins scores 4 points and pulls down 4 rebounds in 18 minutes of action, as the Warriors get blown out by Boston. K. Perkins: 7 points and 7 rebounds and 4 assists.

Quote: Quote: THATS MY BOY ALL U SMOOVE HATERS --- THAT'S THE GAME CHANGING ABILITY I'M TALKIN 'BOUT!! No one ever questions his shotblocking ability, but the Hawks aren't in this game without JJ's two big 3's. That was a Team Win at the end. Some of everybody contributed to the win. +7 in rebounds . . 16 offensive rebounds ( 5 by Al, 4 by Smoove ) That's how you stay in games people, when you can't make a shot.

Thank God for Josh Smith !! (( tossing clothes out of the suitcase ))) Dammit . . I knew we weren't going 0 -3 . . lol !!

Quote: North, don't pack that toothbrush just yet... LOL . . I see that. (( chanting like the little kids in Philips Arena )) LETS GO HAWKS !!! LETS GO HAWKS !!!

LOL @ this team. I don't know who is more schizophrenic . . the Hawks, or Hawksquawk posters? +3 in rebounding . . . up to 35% shooting . . +6 in turnovers. All we had to do, is make a few shots I guess.

Quote: Quote: yeah they force him to miss those open jump shots JJ has always been a player who hits shots in rhythm. Without a PG and/or someone to attack the basket, he's gotten out of rhythm. Not a particularly difficult concept. Well he got into rhythm last night . . hitting 5 of his last 6 shots. Of course, we were down 16 at the time . . Let's see if he'll pad his stats again tonight. Maybe he'll start out quick this quarter.

Oh well . . we were -4 with D-Wade OFF the floor. And here comes "Flash" now. (( packing my bags . . getting ready for my 10-day, self-imposed with a dumb azz bet, Hawksquawk vacation ))

Quote: LOL he can't shoot 3's anymore, what happen to him??? He needs to switch "superstar freestyle" icons. He has the "playmaker" icon on right now. He needs to switch to his "3-point" icon.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!! STay on those boards Smoove and Al!!

Ricky Davis made his first 5 shots . . he's now missed his last 5 shots. Damn . . Shaq with the offensive rebound and Jam.

Quote: Ha Wade with 4 fouls!!! Gotta make the run NOW, because Riles won't put Wade back in, until the start of the 4th . . or at the very least, toward the end of the 3rd.