TheNorthCydeRises

Two teams that Hawk fans want to fail . . . NY Knicks and Brooklyn Nets . . . for obvious reasons. May as well add the Utah Jazz to that list. Who knows what will happen around here, if Marvin looks like a legit bench contributor during the playoffs.

LOL @ ESPN's headline on the recap of the game "Tim Duncan carries short-handed Spurs over Hawks" - Al Horford - Josh Smith - Kyle Korver - Devin Harris - Lou Williams - Zaza Pachulia . . didn't play in that game for us. That's 6 of our top 7 players. So who was "short-handed" again, when the only people the Spurs had out were Parker, Ginobli, and Diaw?

Aight Syracuse . . . LETS GO !!

LOL @ this game. Dahntay needs to make 2 . . miss the 3rd . . and hope Ivan or somebody tips the shot in to go to OT. Come on Ivan . . get this tap in. Haha Oh well. Entertaining game nonetheless.

If Syracuse keeps playing well when I don't watch them, I won't watch the rest of that game. Everytime I try to watch that game, they suck, so I turn back to the Hawks game. Come on Cuse.

LOL The fact that all of their players seem to compliment each other, or provide a SPECIFIC role on the team, is what makes them so tough. No 2 players on that team are the same type of player. Bench guys showing a lot of heart tonight though. Proud of the way they've played in this game.

Teague having a bad game, so Drew benches him for Mack, despite us being in crunch time. Scott and Ivan doing the best they can vs Duncan. Hawks still in striking distance. LOL @ the refs calling a travel on Jenkins on that PRETTY move to the hole. That would've cut it to 3. Instead, Duncan makes a 20 footer and they're back up 7 smh

Scott and Jenkins are balling tonight. Both are very gifted offensive talents. Jenkins quick release on his shot is crazy. Made ANOTHER shot. Hawks scrubs battling. LOL @ Mack with back to back 3's to close the quarter. Down 4.

LOL @ the Hawks "tanking" PG - Teague G - Jones F - Tolliver PF - Ivan C - Petro And I guess Stevenson still doesn't play on back to back nights. If Ivan balls tonight, he's going to play himself into a nice contract, because he'll definitely catch the eye of Popovich. Bench G - Jenkins ( ?? ) F - Scott ( who will probably ball tonight too ) G - Mack

- 65 - 32 as coach of the Knicks - 4 consecutive winning seasons ( 2 in ATL . . 2 in NY ). - 5 consecutive playoff appearances. ( 3 in ATL . . 2 in NY ) - Knicks on the verge of winning their 1st division title in 20 years. - Knicks on the verge of reaching 50 wins for the first time since the 2000 season. He may not be a top notch coach, but don't talk like that dude is garbage. He teaches the right things that promotes winning. He's gotten Carmelo, a player much maligned for his effort on defense, to put up BY FAR the best defensive season he's ever had. In Atlanta, all he had were 5 good players, 2 inconsistent players, and a bunch of either underachieving vets or inconsistent rookies. I would've loved to see what Woody could've done with these current Hawks. Korver would still have the green light to fire away. Ivan would be one of his favorite players, because he plays hard on defense and he rebounds the basketball. More may have been asked of Devin Harris offensively. With Teague at the point, his role in the offense would be increased. Smith would be chided into playing more and more inside. And Horford would be "that guy" on offense who would be dependend upon to produce in crunch time.

Diesel bringing back old memories. If the Hawks had the 2010 version this year, we'd be #2 in the East on pace to win 55 - 57 games. We matched up with every team in the league that year, with the exception of the Orlando Magic. 2010 Hawks vs 2013 Knicks PG - Bibby vs Felton G - Johnson vs Shumpert F - Marvin vs Melo PF - Smith vs Amare C - Horford vs Chandler 6th man - Jamal vs J.R. Two teams that are virtual mirror images of each other who basically play the same way. The difference would be that Horford + Smith in 2010 > Amare + Chandler in 2013. The combo of JJ + Jamal ( 39 points - 8 asst - 45% FG - 37% 3FG ) virtually equals the production from the combo of Melo + J.R.in 2013 ( 46 pts - 5 asst - 43% FG - 36% 3FG ) I would've loved to see that Hawks team have another forward with the skills of an Ivan, or a spot up shooter they could've brought off the bench like Jenkins ( instead of Mo Evans ). Zaza was pretty sad that year as well.

I thought it was a great article. I didn't know that Smith stayed in LA during the offseason. I thought that was an interesting tidbit. One quote from Josh especially hit me. "I like passing the basketball," he said. "I like to reward people for good work. Every kid wants their mom to take them for ice cream when they do good. People want to get rewarded. And if they don't get rewarded, it can become, not a selfish thing, but like 'I'm going to take this shot because I haven't got any looks,' and then everybody else does the same thing." He said this quote in the context of getting others involved, but I think it can also be applied to him, and why he takes some of the shots he takes. I think he feels that he needs to be "rewarded" as well. So as one of the leaders of the team, if he gets a wide open look for a 20 foot jumper, he's taking it, because he freely passes the ball to other people for 20 foot jumpers. It's flawed thinking, because it plays right into the other team's hands, but I truly believe that's what he's thinking. I've been literally begging for Josh to play like Shawn Kemp for the last 7 of the 9 years he's been in the NBA. His game should consist of constantly attacking the basket, grabbing offensive rebounds and putting them back in the hole, and posting up smaller forwards. But once he ( or his people ) put in his head that he HAD to become a better jumpshooter to keep teams honest and become a better well-rounded player, it essentially made him a more inefficient player. Instead of working on the things that he already possessed, but could become much better at ( post scoring and rebounding ), he focused on the thing in which he was weakest at ( jumpshooting ). Josh is the type of player who needs a very good pass first PG to create opportunities for him going to the rim. He doesn't trust Teague enough to let him create offensive opportunities for Josh. He may be much better playing with a PG like Ricky Rubio or even Jose Calderon. It's almost unthinkable that Josh is about to attempt 200 threes this season, despite only making 30% of them.

OK . . this literally made me LOL forreal.

Woodyball = Let's live and die with our best offensive players. The rest of you just pass it to them and grab their misses. Drewball = Let's pass it around until someone gets an open shot. It doesn't matter who shoots it, just as long it's an open shot.

That's like saying 0 - 7 FG is the same as 0 - 0 FG. It's the same in points, but one player is wasting scoring opportunities. Doesn't matter now though. This game is ova.

The sad thing is that Al and Josh are complete non factors now. 14 points - 14 rebounds - 9 assists TOTAL for the 2 of them. 7 - 21 FG. And the crowd . . . smh Just rename Atlanta . . . Transplantville, GA

LOL . . you're mad about people complaining that Josh is 0 - 7 FT? You know that's essentially the difference in the game right now, right? Plus the fact that Melo is eating him, and anybody else that guards him . . . ALIVE. ( sigh ) . . . down 10 now.

Final tally. @ Boston - LOSS vs Brooklyn - LOSS @ Miami - LOSS vs LA Lakers - WIN vs Phoenix - WIN @ Brooklyn - WIN vs Dallas - LOSS vs Milwaukee - WIN vs Portland - LOSS @ Milwaukee - WIN @ Indiana - LOSS @ Toronto - WIN @ Boston - LOSS 6 - 7 record . . . sitting at 6th in the East. Hawks, Nets, and Bulls all play fairly weak schedules coming down the stretch. Doesn't look like we'll pass Brooklyn for 4th. And we may have to win 6 of the 9 games to get to that #5 seed. Boston is 1.5 games back, and plays a slightly tougher schedule in it's final 10 games. Unless we just totally tank, they shouldn't overtake us for that 6th seed. So it looks like we're on a collision course to play Indy or the NY Knicks ( whom we play twice in these final 9 games ) in that 1st round.

185 three point attempts for Smith this year . . making 31%. 442 shots from 16 feet or further, representing 40.6% of his total shots . . . shooting 30% FG on those shots. Smith STILL has a negative Offensive Win Score for the season ( - 0.6 ) In 3 years under Drew, Smith has attempted 448 threes in 212 games, making 30.4% of them If he can't get Josh Smith to play the right way, he needs to go, no matter how much this team is "overachieving".

I feel a good game coming from Marvin Williams tonight. Let me add him to the fantasy team right quick.

LOL . . I guess Smith is going to take 30 shots tonight . . and the coach is going to let him. And people want to call current and former Hawks players "selfish". Josh is just jacking up shots at will right now. And now he gets a technical. Heinson just called him "the Atlanta version of Perk" ( Perkins ). This is why Drew can't coach this team if Josh is still here. He has absolutely no control over how he plays.

IF we're talking about changing the culture, and creating a buzz around this team, both Drew and Smith will probably have to go. Definitely one of them has to go, because Drew has proven that he can't control Smith and have him play the way he should be playing. I think Ferry likes Smith. If that's the case, he has to get rid of Drew. To maximize the cap space, Smith will have to be renounced as well. Something is telling me that Ferry isn't too fond of Teague either, so he may be gone too. I expect this team to be totally remade, especially if we don't put up a good showing in the playoffs.

ISO Joe existed because we didn't have a PG to run the show, nor a reliable low post option. And until Crawford came to the team, we didn't have another guy that could adequately create his own shot either. Despite Mike Bibby being the PG, JJ set him up for more shots than Bibby set JJ up with shots. LOL @ Assists doesn't mean getting your teammates involved. Well how in the world would you measure "getting your team involved" then? If you're simply moving the ball without anything happening coming from that pass, you're passing for nothing. And while steals and blocks doesn't necessarily mean that you're a good defender, it DOES mean that you're an active player on defense that can at least kill a possession. And Kobe was in the same situation for years in LA, with no PG who could set him up for shots. So he took it upon himself to create his own shot. And because so much attention was paid to Kobe, he could also set up other people for shots. God knows he set up Derek Fisher for more points, than the other way around. The same went for JJ and guys like Bibby. Games in which JJ had 5 or more assists in the 2 years Jamal Crawford was here 2009 - 10: 38 ( out of 76 games ) 2010 - 11: 35 ( out of 72 games ) This is our ISO heavy 2 guard that does nothing but shoot the ball ( let you tell it ), but he's dropping 5+ assists per game in 50% of the games he played in? Some of you act like JJ shot the ball 25 times a game. I'll say that JJ didn't shoot ENOUGH at times, and would defer to guys at the wrong time. Sometimes a guy who you need to score the basketball, simply needs to get up his shots. JJ wasn't an unconscious shot taker like Jamal, who looked to shoot all the time. He deferred too much at times, if you ask me, especially during the playoffs. I'm sorry, but this is just silly on all kinds of levels. If you have the ability to take and make game winners ( usually on shots that are highly contested ), that means you are CLUTCH. You can try to twist it around any way you can, but that's what it means. You talk about the games where JJ's shots clanked off the rim, well welcome to the NBA dude. Most players ( even superstar players ) are going to fail in those situations more than they'll succeed. But JJ succeeded enough in those situations for people ( who aren't biased against the dude ) to be seen as a clutch player. He consistently bailed us out last year in late game situations. And then you cite Jamal being cutch. He's made some big shots in his career. And he was a very good "early 4th quarter" scorer. But as far as Jamal's "clutchness" . . LOL. Here are your "clutch" stats for the 2009 - 10 season for Jamal, which was the best shooting year for him in his career, up to this point. http://www.82games.com/0910/09ATL3.HTM#clutch 25% FG shooting for Jamal when the game was under 5 minutes, and the Hawks were ahead or behind by 5 points. Here is JJ in the same 2009 - 10 season http://www.82games.com/0910/09ATL5.HTM#clutch 46% FG shooting in those same situations. But in your mind, Jamal was more clutch? OK dude. Matter of fact, you have access to Youtube just like I do. Bring up all of Jamal's "clutch" plays as a Hawk. Nobody is arguing that it wasn't time to break the team up. But we needed MORE than what we had, to get to that next level. The team that won 53 games in 2010, but got blown out by Orlando in the 2nd round, was a team that was really only 7 deep. Our bench was basically Zaza and Jamal. Teague wasn't ready, and Woody didn't help Teague by not playing him as much as he should've. He opted more times than not to let Jamal be the backup PG. And Mo Evans was nothing more than a poor man's Deshawn Stevenson back then. After that, we had a bunch of bums on the squad. The bench we have now, with guys like Ivan, John Jenkins, and Mike Scott, is far more talented than those veteran minimum or young project scrubs that Rick Sund constantly brought in. But if Ferry wanted to keep the team together one more year, here is our squad PG - Teague G - Harris . . ( because the Marvin trade still could've gone down ) F - Johnson PF - Smith C - Horford G - Williams ( replaced by Mack once Lou got hurt ) G - Jenkins F - Scott F - Ivan C - Zaza F - Tolliver ( although I would've added someone else . . a defensive minded SG/SF ) C - free agent vet minimum center If that's the team this year, we'd wouldn't be able to beat Miami . . . but we could very well be a top 3 seed right now. That squad would be better than what we have now. But the Hawks still could've used the LLE to add a better rotational player to add to the bench. If that put us over the Luxury Tax, so be it. But this ownership has not once went all out to assemble the best team possible. Even when they let Jamal go, they didn't HAVE to let him go. They could've re-signed him for the 5 mill that he ended up playing for in Portland. But to do that, would put them in jeopardy of going over the Luxury Tax by a few million. Or they could've brought in some other 5 million dollar caliber player.

LOL @ JJ not getting his teammates involved, despite leading the Hawks in assists in 4 or 5 of the 7 years he was a Hawk.. In fact, a lot of Smith's alley-oop and fast break dunks came via a JJ assist. And JJ was the main culprit for years with tossing the ball out to Josh for wide open shots.#keeptellinglies

Why not admit that you straight up LIED about JJ in your original post? That dude wasn't a 6 time All-Star ( with 5 of them being voted in by the coaches ) for nothing. I'm not acting like JJ was Nique. But I'm not the one who said that JJ basically played the same way as Kyle Korver, which is another straight up LIE. And the reason why people complain about Josh Smith and his jumpers, is because HE CAN'T SHOOT. And Josh's jumpers are WIDE OPEN SHOTS. He doesn't have to break down people and shoot contested jumpers ( mainly because he can't ). Josh is our PF. We need our PF to rebound and play as much around the rim as possible. Josh does the exact opposite at times. That's why the fans get on him. And as far as JJ not doing anything in Brooklyn . . . SMH.