TheNorthCydeRises

Exactly. They enjoy being lied to . . and they enjoy citing any sort of evidence that Woody is an idiot for doing this or that. I guess Larry Brown is an idiot too . . because he's NOTORIOUS for doing this. So is Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and former coach Lou Holtz.

Exactly. Just look at all of the things that JJ is asked to do on this team: - be the leading scorer - be the main playmaker by setting everybody else up - defend 3 positions ( PG, SG, SF ) . . and be a defensive stopper when playing D - get at least 20 pts - 5 rebs - 5 asst a night - shoot at least 45% FG and 80% FT In other words, he's given "superstar responsibilities". It's maybe 5 - 10 guys in the entire league, that is asked to do all of that. The defensive duties on the PG is probably the killer in all of this. He doesn't get to "take plays off", because he's almost always involved on the ball on offense and defense.

I miss "Money Midrange" Marvin. The minute he tried to develop the 3 point shot, was the minute his midrange jumper left him. He used to be dang near automatic 3 years ago from 17 - 22 feet. Now Horford is slowly becoming "Money Midrange" As for Marvin though, his rebounding is up during the playoffs, even if his points are down. At least he isn't totally disappearing, like our starting PG.

You're right. No depth. And if it's anything you do in the offseason, it's try to add some depth to this squad. And we'll have a chance to do that via the draft, and possibly with the MLE. We easily have the worst bench out of all the remaining playoff teams. So instead of blowing up the team, you add to the bench. But seriously. What center is out there that will help us against Dwight Howard . . . who is now the best center in basketball. Is there ANY CENTER that will put us over the top of Orlando? What . . . you gonna trade Smoove for Chris Kaman or Andres Biendrins? You gonna coax the Lakers out of Andrew Bynum? You gonna tell Memphis to give us Marc Gasol? And even in a ridiculous sign and trade like JJ for Paul, the Hornets would never do that. If you want to get rid of the coach, and see if a different voice can get us to the next level . . . fine. But blowng up the team right now isn't going to get us any closer to winning anything. You'd just be on here complaining next year, talking about why the Hawks are only a .500 team, fighting to hold off Charlotte for the 8th spot.

Quit crying. Ya'll kill me with the damn crybaby act every single time we lose a game. We lost on the road to an NBA Finals contender . . in their building. We battled this team toe to toe, until about the 7 min mark, when they pulled away. If you ask me, we definitely made progress. And if JJ or Jamal would've made a few shots in the 4th, maybe we win or lose by 6 or less points. Everybody on this board knows that they're better than us. So why all of the crying? LOL @ blow up the team. And then what? Do an NBA 2K10 like trade that you can't do in the real world? Wish on a star for a superstar? We're down 2 - 0 . . . now they have to come to Philips. Let's see if we can win 2 games, and make it a series again. Two well-coached teams ( Utah and San Antonio ) are also down 2 - 0. And the only reason Boston isn't down 2 - 0, is because of Lebron's elbow. So let's see if we can play 2 inspired games at home, and tie this series up 2 - 2. Orlando did what they're supposed to do. Now it's time for us to do what we're supposed to do.

You guys can't take Marvin's comments that serious. That's caled "being coy", or downplaying what you're going to do. This team knows it can "compete" with Orlando. They just have to prevent those mega-runs that blow the game open.

Exactly. Either that, or he got his info "from a source close to both JJ and Smoove ". Sounds like BS to me though. But if it were true, this speaks much worse about those two guys, than it does the coach. Some people will spin this, and say . . "see I told you. They don't even listen to Woody." Well if that's the case, and the players go on the court and do their own thing, that would mean that every loss is on the PLAYERS, That would mean that in most late game situations, the players aren't listening to Woody talk, and just out there and do what they want. Which would place sole blame on them, not the coach. I thin Bucher is simply quoting one of his anonymous "sources". Please God . . . let the Hawks win this game, so that all of these mo-fos talking crap about this team will shut the hell up. People all of a sudden think they know the Hawks. They don't know anything. Hell . . even Jalen Rose the other day slipped and called Cincinnati Bengal coach - Marvin Lewis . . . and called him Marvin Williams.

But these guys will still somehow spin how Fratello would be the right man for the job. http://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/fratemi99c.html

Exactly. Fratello's playoff record in his last 6 trips: 2 - 20 LOL . . even Woody has a better playoff winning % than Fratello.

Acutally, we may lose if we do that. The guards are going to have to start making some jumpers. Neither JJ nor Crawford are guys who go all the way to the rim. Smoove and Horford definitely need to try to attack. But if we can't make jumpers, we're going to lose anyway. And the onus is not only on JJ and Crawford, busy like Bibby and Marvin need to hit their open jumpers as well. The Hawks can't start doing things that they aren't good at, simply because it worked for other teams. The Hawks have to be who they are. Make some damn open jumpshots.

Matter of fact, I wouldn't mind his first two shots being three pointers.

That's all I've asked out of JJ in the playoffs. Get your shots up. Don't turn it over. He's proven that he can make tough shots. He didn't make the 3rd team All-NBA for nothing.

FIRST TEAM Kobe Wade Lebron Durant Howard SECOND TEAM Nash Deron Melo Dirk Amare THIRD TEAM JJ Roy Duncan Gasol Bogut ( which is a little bit of a shocker )

Congrats to the captain. I thought he'd have a shot to make at least 3rd team. He had a damn good overall season http://www.nba.com/2010/news/05/06/all.nba/?ls=iref:nbahpt1

Congrats Smoove. It's a damn shame that he finishes 2nd in the DPOY voting, but can't even make 1st team All Defense

Chill better get the hell out of Greece. Win that tourney, and get the heck out of that country, before it goes into complete chaos. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/06/greece.strikes/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Collins shouldn't even set foot in the game, unless both Horford and Zaza are in foul trouble. Zaza is the guy that has historically had at least some success vs Howard. His active body on both ends of the floor at least makes Howard work a little bit harder to keep him off the boards. Collins nor Zaza are going to stop Howard. But Zaza is probably more likely to pick up some fouls vs Howard, especially battling for rebounds. If Collins is used again, I hope he proves me wrong. But dude is basically a garbage basketball player, and has been for a while now.

I agree. I think you make those Magic shooters come out hot and beat you. Don't let Dwight get into an offensive rhythm to start the game. If they miss, you now have the transition offense opportunities that the Hawks got in that 1st quarter. Relying on the Hack-a-Howard philosophy is going to KILL our transition offense game, because we're not going to be able to get out and run off of missed or made FTs. We run off of missed shot attempts. Now we can't give the shooters wide open looks, especially certain ones. But make those shooters come out hot and see if they can beat us. Coachx is dead on. All of that hacking of Howard led to our big men racking up fouls by the boatloads, which probably took some of their aggressiveness away. And the fouling slowed the game down for us, eliminating transition opportunities. If we're going to struggle in the halfcourt, then we must be able to get out and run off of missed shots, in order to generate offense.

A lot of that came via transition though. Smoove got 6 points off of transition opportunities. And the Hawks made 4 jumpshots in that quarter as well. The Hawks were limiting the Magic to one and done opportunities, or creating turnovers, which fueled those opportunities. And they also got a few offensive rebounds, and put the ball back in the hole. A lot of you are in denial about the impact that Dwight Howard has on our frontline and the aggressiveness of our guards. When these guys get wide open jumpers, they have to knock them down. That's the only way we're going to beat the Magic. In the game we beat them in March, a big reason for the win was Mike Bibby and Mo Evans knocking down outside shots.

At least you understand what the issue is. It's one thing to say that we have to do something. It's completely different when you look at the personnel, and see if they can successfully do it. People want us to play like Charlotte, but we don't have the personnel that Charlotte has. And because Charlotte can't shoot the basketball at all from the outside, even they ended up getting swept. Every miss the Hawks have, turns into an transition offense opportunity for the Magic . . . and they'll shoot threes out of transition. At some point, the Hawks are going to have to make jumpshots. JJ and Jamal are going to have to make some tough jumpers, while the other guys need to knock down the wide open looks. - JJ's game is not about attacking the rim and drawing fouls - Nor is Crawford's - Nor is Horford's - Smoove can do it, but the refs may or may not call a foul when he gets hit - Marvin can do it, but people have always talked about how clumsy and how he gets his shot blocked - Mo Evans can't do it - Bibby sure in the hell can't do it - Zaza likes to bang, and occasionally will draw a foul . . but he gets turnover prone when trying to do too much We don't have that prototypical "slasher" on this squad. Smoove is the closest guy to being that. The minute the Hawks start knocking down open jumpshots ( and tough jumpers by JJ and Jamal ), is the minute you'll see this series change for the better. Bibby, JJ, Jamal, and Horford shot a combined 7 - 34 in last night's game. You're not going to beat anybody shooting like that. In JJ's case, he has to turn the ball over less, and get up more shots. And if he makes a few, he'll be able to pass the ball to other open shooters.

Adjustment #1 . . . should be to leave Joe Smith and Jason Collins on the bench. Go back to coaching up the guys you know will make positive contributions in a game.

Zaza will come up huge in Game 2. I liked the way he played tonight. I know one thing, he should get in the game before Jason Collins.

The 5 turnovers by JJ is unacceptable. He needs to understand that he may have to be less of a facilitator in this series, and more of a scorer. He only had 6 shot attempts in the 1st half. That's not going to be enough in this series. He's going to have to be waaaay more aggressive than what he played tonight. Get your shots up JJ and be more aggressive. Less dribbling, and trust your jumper . . because with D-Howard lurking in the lane, the floater may not be the way to go.

Exactly. Marvin will be left open all series, so he needs to pull what Trevor Ariza did last year in the playoffs, and become a "money shooter" when open JJ will have to consistently show that he can score the basketball throughout the game. He can't go through any lulls shooting-wise, in order to stave off Magic runs. And the bench player . . . is Crawford. We need him teaming with JJ, to give us that extra scoring punch. We're going to need 20+ per game from JJ and Crawford, combined with possibly 15 per game from Marvin, in order to get this done. I'm not expecting a big series from Horford at all, while Smoove does have a chance to do his thing vs Rashard Lewis. The X-factor is always Marvin . . but the real x-factor may be Zaza, and his defense and his aggressive play vs Howard.

You don't trade one of them because they struggle against Dwight Howard. You trade one of them to balance out the team better, preferably for a big man who can possibly play the position better than either Horford or Smoove. Just can't trade them because they might fail against D-Howard.