TheNorthCydeRises

Shall I keep going? See . . . this is what I'm talking about. Some of you can dislike JJ all you want, but I will NOT let you get away with disrespecting that man like that . . . like he was a nothing for this franchise the past 7 years. Hate him because he wasn't a superstar who couldn't uplift his team to that next level. Hate him because he got that insane contract from management. But don't disrespect that man like he was Kirk Hinrich or somebody. That dude won a TON of games for us, without a legit PG here or a legit low post scorer. Here's the reality. Had the Hawks assembled the type of role players we had now WITH JJ here . . . maybe we could've gone a lot further in the playoffs in the past. Instead, we trade him and have to add 4 - 5 players JUST to stay at the same level. But no one will look at it like that. LOL . . this site is funny sometimes.

WTF? Really? Did you even watch the Hawks last year? The following clips are ALL games from last year. Matter of fact . . . they're all games AFTER the All-Star break last year. http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q49EfMF4GMc http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NABojcdl8M4 http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=taguGDSnJ98

Great accomplishment for these guys. Franchise record is 7 consecutive appearances from 1993 - 1999 . . . with the best team in that stretch being 56-win ( 1996 - 97 ) Hawks team that lost to the 69-win Bulls team in the 2nd round. Hawks are trending toward winning around 46 games, which is well above what most of us thought they could do. I'm not going to say they would've won more if Lou were healthy, because he was a detriment to the team at times ( and to Teague, because Lou would have the ball in his hands during times in which Teague should've had it ). Teague's numbers really didn't skyrocket until Lou got hurt. And I can't say enough about Al Horford, who has been playing at a high level for about 2 months now. He's truly established himself as the best player on the team now. Smith, since the All-Star break, may have been a little erratic, but he's played good basketball as well.

Changes on a game by game basis. Not "chances"

No. Drew has ALWAYS shuffled his lineups. He was doing this crap last year. And it's not just with the starting lineup, it's with his rotations off the bench. You have bench players ( some of them supposedly main rotation bench players ) who literally do not know if they're going to play on a nightly basis. Ivan is a perfect example of this. He should easily be averaging 20+ minutes a game on this team. For a guy like Anthony Tolliver to be getting more time than Ivan, is almost a travesty. So because of injuries, he puts the weakest possible lineup out on the floor? He never thought for one second to start Korver to give that starting unit a little more pop offensively, while telling Horford to "suck it up" and play his game? Petro was -19 in that 1st half in 17 minutes of play. And Drew went with a starting lineup of Teague - Korver - Tolliver - Smith - Horford to start the 2nd half. LOL . . . the very 2 people he started the game with, didn't even play after halftime. And Drew was so stubborn, he didn't even have any substitutions AT ALL in that 3rd quarter. NONE. He let that lead balloon to 28 points and STILL didn't take some of his inserted pieces out of the game in favor of the bench. Then when he decides to put the end of the bench in, they BALLED. Drew didn't even think about using some of those guys before the game got out of hand. He played Petro, Tolliver, and Dahntay Jones before he played any of the younger, more talented guys. Sorry sir. That was a classic case of Drew "outsmarting" himself. Instead of playing to OUR STRENGTHS, he constantly changes the lineup to TRY to limit the strengths of the other team. Meanwhile, they don't even worry about us like that, because our team identity chances on a game by game basis. What you mean no one could've guessed that? The Pacers have been doing this for almost 2 years now. Injuries don't phase that team because they have a solid TEAM from 1 - 10. Hibbert and George are All-Star caliber players at their position. Augustin is a former starting PG. Green is the most athletic player in the league. Hansbrough is a scrapper. Pacers are built on defense and balance, and can survive without decent offensive players because of this. Meanwhile, the Hawks have ALWAYS had this trend of letting scrub players have career nights on us. So it isn't a surprise that Jeff Pendergraph, Gerald Green and Orlando Johnson look like ballers against us. And since the Hawks aren't built to defend, those nights to see scrubs balling have become more frequent. Bottom line is that Drew needs to play his best 9 guys, no matter what kind of matchup problems our opponent supposedly presents to us. George and Hibbert didn't even SCORE in the 4th quarter. But the lead was so big, that we couldn't recover. Drew should've fallen on the sword for that loss last night. He needs to stop blaming the players all the time, simply because he doesn't want to take fault in ANYTHING that goes wrong with this team.

I said that Drew is part of the reason why the TEAM is inconsistent. And even if he doesn't take credit for some of these wins, his lineups and sub patters have A LOT to do with some of those losses. Why an "energy guy" like Ivan Johnson can't get consistent ROTATIONAL minutes every night is mind boggling to me. Even when he does make mistakes, he's making a lot of things happen as well ( ala Josh Smith ). On a Per 36 minute basis, here is where Ivan ranks on the team in various categories POINTS: 15.5 . . ( 5th on the team ) REBOUNDS: 9.2 . . ( 5th . . and a higher rate than Josh Smith's 8.6 rebs per 36 minutes ) STEALS: 1.9 . . ( 1st on the team ) FIELD GOAL %: .502 . . ( 2nd . . only behind Horford ) FT ATTEMPTS: 4.7 . . ( 1st on the team ) His weakness as a player are the turnovers and the fouling that he seems to do ( because he plays so aggressive ). But the one guy who almost always brings the "energy" on the floor, can't get consistent minutes? Ivan makes some of the former big man scrubs we used to have around here ( Shelden Williams, Jason Collins, Solomon Jones, Joe Smith, etc ) look like D-League players. But he can't get a set amount or even extended minutes on a given night? Seriously . . WTF is that all about?

I think Ferry wants to totally remake this team. He probably likes Korver, because he is a one-dimensional player like he was when he played in the NBA. But if Kyle Korver is one of the team's main offensive weapons, we're not going to be much better than what we are today. He's just too limited of a ball player to be counted on to impact a basketball game on a nightly basis. And when teams really lock in on him to prevent him from getting shots off, he can be totally taken out of a game. People make a big deal about "age" around here, but a guy like Vince Carter is a much better all around player than Korver. He can even still create his own shot. Honestly, from that standpoint alone, I'd much rather spend 4 million to sign Vince for a year or two, than to spend 6 mill a year for the next 3 - 4 years to sign Korver.

Drew irritates me to the core, with all of the lineup changes according to how WE match up with our opponent. Never do we stay with a consistent enough lineup to force opponents to match up with US. That's why this team goes through tremendous ebbs and flows. Drew "outthinks" himself. Starting Petro vs Hibbert, I can understand. Even with that move, you only keep Petro on him unless he is effective. IF he isn't, and you need a better defender or more firepower in the game, get him out of there. Starting Dahntay Jones . . . nah. Not against a balanced offensive team like the Pacers. At least Stevenson can give you some timely 3 point shooting while playing decent defense. With Dahntay, you're getting virtually no offense whatsoever. So Drew expected an unbalanced offense to be carried by Horford, Smith, and Teague . . with Petro and Jones playing "lockdown defense" to limit the production of Hibbert and George? But Drew blames "energy" as the reason why they lost? It must be nice to live in a world in which the coach bears no responsibility whatsoever for losses like these. Drew is definitely not the coach for a team like this. He's a big part of the reason why this team is so inconsistent.

@ 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 5 - 6 so far, with 2 more games to go . . both road games. @ Toronto . . ( Rudy Gay day to day ) @ Boston . . ( no Kevin Garnett ) Can't trust this team to win both games on the road, so I'll say we'll split the pair. If we win these 2 games, plus beat Orlando on Saturday night, the Hawks would've gone 9 - 9 for the month of March. All things considered, that would be decent for this team. They would've basically won all of the games they were definitely supposed to win, with the exception of the game @ Phoenix. The home win vs the Lakers and the road win vs Brooklyn definitely helped us this month. These are 2 winnable games + winnable games coming up vs Orlando and Cleveland. Is it too much to ask of the Hawks to go on a 4 game winning streak right about now? Maybe it is. It would be nice to put a little more heat on the Nets and Knicks for that #3 seed. But right now, we may just do a "mini-tank" and stay at the 6th seed.

. . has been the pillar of consistently for the most part, while playing outstanding basketball. Can't say enough about how this dude has been playing since the All-Star break . . and honestly, since we lost that debacle of a game vs New Orleans right before the A-S Break 21 points 11.2 rebs 59% FG% Maybe most important, he's getting the shot attempts to put up those kinds of numbers ( over 16 FGA per game ). And then he goes for 26 points and 15 rebounds tonight. When he has that midrange jumper to go along with his cutting and moving around the basket, he becomes a pretty potent offensive player to stop. Just an outstanding effort by him. Finally becoming the definitive leader of this team.

@ Boston - LOSS vs Brooklyn - LOSS @ Miami - LOSS vs LA Lakers - WIN vs Phoenix - WIN @ Brooklyn - WIN vs Dallas - LOSS Upcoming games: vs Milwaukee vs Portland @ Milwaukee @ Indiana @ Toronto @ Boston At the bare minimum, we need to win those 2 Milwaukee games. Lose both of them, and the Hawks will be in danger of dropping to that 8th slot. No easy games coming up at all.

Oh well. I guess we'll just have to say that a conference win of Jersey is more important than a non-conference loss. It's just a shame when you shoot 56% FG and score 113 points, that you still lose by 14 points.

Old man Vince been balling all year. Age don't mean a dang thing if you can play. A guy like himself could play another 3 years in a reserve role, if he wanted to. Somebody please stop Collison . . just one time.

Wow . . . Teague ended up with 15 assists tonight, and found his shot in that 4th quarter. That game never felt like the Hawks was going to lose it, but they needed to create some space between they and the Nets. Once that happened, the Nets folded up and died. Pretty damn good dude . . even though you had the game going into double OT to get that score. The Hawks really turned it on in that 4th quarter. Wished they played like that all the time.

Big time quarter for the Hawks. Turning it completely on and taking the heart out of that team. Great job guys.

Dahntay having a great game. Nets are playing lazy defense tonight. Game has all of a sudden broke in our favor, with us up by 11. Close this team out boys.

Great block by Ivan, even if they did call a foul on him.

LMAO @ AL Better to be lucky than good sometimes.

Game is grinding, but the Hawks are still in control. Teague's shot is useless tonight, so he should concentrate on being a playmaker at all costs. Just contain #2 in the 4th quarter. LOL @ the last minute of that quarter.

5 year look at the Hawks offense in comparison to other Hawks teams and to the league. Offensive rating 2010: 111.9 . . ( 2nd in the league ) 2009: 109.3 . . ( 10th ) 2011: 106.1 . . ( 20th ) 2012: 104.9 . . ( 16th ) 2013: 104.3 . . ( 19th ) Points Per Game 2010: 101.7 . . ( 13th ) 2009: 98.1 . . ( 19th ) 2013: 97.3 . . ( 17th ) 2012: 96.6 . . ( 17th ) 2011: 95.0 . . ( 26th ) Field Goal % 2010: 46.8% . . ( 11th ) 2013: 46.2% . . ( 7th ) 2011: 46.2% . . ( 12th ) 2009: 45.8% . . ( 11th ) 2012: 45.4% . . ( 11th ) 3 Field Goal % 2013: 37.9% . . ( 5th ) 2012: 37.0% . . ( 5th ) 2009: 36.6% . . ( 16th ) 2010: 36.0% . . ( 9th ) 2011: 35.2% . . ( 12th ) Free Throw % 2011: 77.9% . . ( 6th ) 2010: 75.9% . . ( 15th ) 2012: 74.0% . . ( 23rd ) 2009: 73.7% . . ( 28th ) 2013: 70.6% . . ( 27th ) Free Throw Attempts 2009: 25.4 . . ( 9th ) 2010: 23.3 . . ( 23rd ) 2011: 21.1 . . ( 29th ) 2012: 21.0 . . ( 25th ) 2013: 19.1 . . ( 28th ) Assists 2013: 24.5 . . ( 3rd ) 2011: 22.0 . . ( 12th ) 2012: 22.4 . . ( 11th ) 2010: 21.8 . . ( 12th ) 2009: 20.2 . . ( 23rd ) Turnovers 2010: 12.0 . . ( 1st ) 2009: 12.8 . . ( 7th ) 2011: 13.6 . . ( 9th ) 2012: 14.0 . . ( 5th ) 2013: 15.2 . . ( 20th )

I can tolerate Josh coming back. It's just that he can't be the best ( or thinks he's the best ) player on the team. If you bring Josh back, you can't make him the marquee player. Either bring in a better player, or make Horford the marquee name and the face of the franchise. As long as Josh thinks that "he's the Atlanta Hawks", his style of play is not going to change. He's going to try to be Superman, even if he has Aquaman type powers.

We play Milwaukee 3 more times this year. We need to take care of business vs them, in order to stay out of that 8th spot. Other than Orlando and Cleveland, there are no real cupcakes left on the schedule. And the Hawks aren't good enough to take anybody for granted.

LMAO !!!

@ Boston - LOSS vs Brooklyn - LOSS @ Miami - LOSS vs LA Lakers - WIN vs Phoenix - WIN Upcoming games: @ Brooklyn vs Dallas vs Milwaukee vs Portland It sure would be nice to go at least 3 - 1 through this stretch.

Excellent ball movement on that Deshawn 3 pointer. Close this team out and get ready for Brooklyn on Sunday.