Exodus still Longs for the Al Harrington Era...

[Diesel]

It's never personal with me and another Hawks fan.

There was an attempt to "villify my position"... when all I'm really saying is:

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If we go toe to toe with the best team in the league and we lose by 1 pt and we played them so hard that it looks like it could have gone either way down the stretch... do you say "Man, the Hawks lost another one..... THEY SUCK"..

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Why is it that the Hawks fans can pay attention to how we play when we lose but as soon as we win a game, how we play doesn't matter...

To me, that's a door that never locks. I'm more interested in how we play because that's a better predictor of if we will win in the future than the fact that we have a check column. It also applies to when we lose. If we lose a game and we play hard and well, that means that we have the ability.

[Sothron]

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Why would it matter who we play?

You said yourself that if we played against "Melo and his Mama" it would still count as a win and that is all that matters.

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He's got ya on that one Diesel.

And no, I would not say the Hawks losing by a point to the best team in the league meant they sucked. Its an 82 game season. If they lost EVERY game like that then yes I'd be upset.

You would have had a better time trying to make this point if the Hawks had blown the 21 point lead and lost. Not when we survive their big run and end up winning by 9.

[Diesel]

You're caught up in Who we play. I'm interested in How we play...

You're interested in who steps on the floor. I don't care if it is Mello and his mama with his great uncle playing Center. That was in reference to the playoff bound Denver Nuggets showing up to play the Hawks without some of their starters missing.

However, if we had played them and looked bad... it would have been a different story...

Now, me myself.. I didn't go to the stats to determine if we played bad... Unfortunately, All I did was watch the game. Just like this past Charlotte game... I didn't go to the stats to see how we played, I just watched the game and I saw that there came a time that when Othella Harrington and Derrick Anderson were in the game that JJ couldn't score and Charlotte made a big run and they had momentum and any Hawks fan watching had no confidence that we would win this one. Now, while you were checking stats and trying to get everybody else's take... the person who watches the game can tell you exactly how we played. Therefore, it's a waste of time for you to talk about how we played... You trying to tell me how we played is like a Blind man telling me about a porno movie? Neither one of you have watched anything. Just hearsay!!!

[Diesel]

If the Hawks went 0-82 and lost every game by one point and all of the games were well played, you'd say that they sucked?

The point in all this is that how a team plays means something. In a lot of cases, it means more than just the W.

[GoDawgs21]

I think we all see your point, I just don't see how you said your Fanship was on the line. I agree its how we play. Last year we lost and everyone points to the record, but you could see the strides. I get that.

[Sothron]

I think an 0-82 season speaks for itself. As my father loves to say, "it doesn't matter if you lose by one or by a hundred, a loss is a loss and a win is a win."

I'm not disagreeing with you that team play is unimportant but while we gave up a big lead we still managed to win by nine points. Obviously something we did was working.

[exodus]

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However, if we had played them and looked bad... it would have been a different story...

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That's just it, they looked bad in both games.

And last year you weren't how the Hawks played, only that they won. I WAS THE ONE talking about how they played, and i wasn't impressed.

Yeah I thought they were going to lose against the Bobcats. I was convinced. But the difference this year is that their defense isn't giving up all the layups they did last year. Therefore THEY CAN WIN EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T PLAY WELL OFFENSIVELY. They had a bunch of blocks against the Bobcats, 11 if i remember right.

Your problem is still that you only focus on one end of the court.

[exodus]

was in the middle of losing 5 of 6 when they played us.

[gutz]

You guys are nuts!! Who cares! We obviously could have played better against the Bobcats and not let them back in the game. I agree with you on that but we did make the plays down the stretch to win the game by 9pts. So what are we argueing about here? We all see your point Diesel about team play and how we need to improve that. We are still without Chill, Marvin and a healthy Speedy. So with that in mind its probably tough on the guys to stay fresh especially in the 4th qtr. We have to just tough it out till were at full strength and if we continue to blow 20+ point leads then, then I will be very worried.

[gsuteke]

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You're caught up in Who we play. I'm interested in How we play...

You're interested in who steps on the floor. I don't care if it is Mello and his mama with his great uncle playing Center. That was in reference to the playoff bound Denver Nuggets showing up to play the Hawks without some of their starters missing.

However, if we had played them and looked bad... it would have been a different story...

Now, me myself.. I didn't go to the stats to determine if we played bad... Unfortunately, All I did was watch the game. Just like this past Charlotte game... I didn't go to the stats to see how we played, I just watched the game and I saw that there came a time that when Othella Harrington and Derrick Anderson were in the game that JJ couldn't score and Charlotte made a big run and they had momentum and any Hawks fan watching had no confidence that we would win this one. Now, while you were checking stats and trying to get everybody else's take... the person who watches the game can tell you exactly how we played. Therefore, it's a waste of time for you to talk about how we played...

You trying to tell me how we played is like a Blind man telling me about a porno movie? Neither one of you have watched anything. Just hearsay!!!

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an ugly win against Charlotte gets us closer to the playoffs. a "spirited" performance and a 2 point loss on a buzzer beater to the Spurs gets us further away from the playoffs.

[thesheedera]

The only thing that is clear to me is that this thread is all about some posters making up arguments to argue out of the clear blue sky. WEIRD.

[exodus]

I'll tell you what get me.

Diesel says he is more concerned with how the Hawks play than the end result. That is EXACTLY how i approached last year and he jumped down my throat about it continually.

During one stretch the Hawks outside shooting was extremely hot. They shot over 50% from 3 for weeks and were still just barely winning some games.

When i mentioned that this shooting wasn't sustainable you would have thought i shot Diesels dog.

For him to be trying to make this argument now is just ridiculous.

[thesheedera]

I think D's itching for some ontroversial topics to keep things lively around here.

We've all watched White Men Can't Jump, we all know about wins and losses sometimes beings losses and wins, or ties...but to take completely black or white stance on it is absurd. If you go 82-0 playing bad hoops, you still go 82-0, you're #1. If you go 0-82 playing great hoops, you're terrible.

It was a win, we eneded it, it "counts" as much as any other win. But we played a terrible third quarter. If our coach is half the coach we need him to be, he used this as a great opportunity to drive home the point of playing a full 48 minutes every night, against everyone. Its a "humbling" win, and it doesn't hurt our record.

I expect Woody to make the most out of a win like that. He seemed to see the silver lining in our blowout loss, I hope he sees the silver lining in an ugly lucky win.

I think we all should.

This team has a TON of room for imporvement and a LOT to learn, and yet their record is already getting better. Progress is nice, isn't it?

[exodus]

Look at it this way.

Speedy has given us nothing on offense, marvin has been out, Chill has missed a lot of time, Smith has sucked, Zaza has sucked maybe half the time and yet the Hawks are averaging 96.6 ppg compared to 97 ppg last season.

Speedy isn't going to suck all year. Marvin and Chill will come back. I see now reason why they can't average 100 ppg while still giving up only mid-90s.

The thing that i think will be the Hawks bugaboo on offense will be turnovers. Defensively they are obviously soft at center. But overall i think the Hawks will be much better than people expect.

[Popeye]

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The thing that i think will be the Hawks bugaboo on offense will be turnovers. Defensively they are obviously soft at center. But overall i think the Hawks will be much better than people expect.

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I agree, we have a lot of turnover prone players like:

Smoove, Zaza, Shelden, Joe and Speedy. All these guys have a high turnover per minutes ratio.

[thesheedera]

I'm willing to raise my expectations from 35-37 wins to 37-40 wins, based on the improved play I've seen. But over 40 wins is still a stretch, based on the occassionally rough play and some of the same old habits I've seen.

Consider this, if we improve our play by, say, 30% over last year, (obviously completely immesureable, but just for argument's sake), I don't know that it translates into 30% more W's, less than 30% more W's, or more than 30% more W's.

On a game by game basis, it might mean you win more games, becuase you're just good enough to win all the close ones we lost. That could make your team go from the cellar to the top, especially as your confidence and team unity increases.

Or maybe as your reputation grows so much that you face tougher competition as opposing teams see you as a threat and start to come with their best game. They start breaking down your film with more urgency, searching for weaknesses. They invest precious time in gameplanning for your squad. They stop taking you as a joke, and start getting serious about beating you.

I think both factors are very real, but I'm not sure how they would play out.

I think we could be a much improved team this year, earn some respectability, but still only win a modest number of games more than we did last season. In the end, if its enough to get the momentum rolling at an accelerated pace, I'll be satisfied.

[CBAreject]

Is this the post, ex? I can't see D's posts, but I remember you argued over whether the Hawks could shoot 50% from 3 for the whole season at one time.

web page

[gsuteke]

damn CBA, you elongated the thread

[exodus]

Looks like the URL feature isn't working for some reason.

All i said was this

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However no team can sustain 50%+ from 3. They will win some games solely based on hot 3pt shooting, like they did the last two, but to win consistently they have to play well in other areas to. They have to play better D and take care of the ball better.

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Diesel's response?

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This is a logical problem.

Why do you say this and believe it?

Are there gnomes that come along and stop teams from sustaining 50%+ from 3? Does D. Stern send a message to the refs to blow the whistle on teams shooting 50% from three.

I think you meant that NO team has ever shot 50% from 3... That is to state that it has not be done before.

However, you start off by talking about the quality of three point shooters and then you talk about how it's impossible for them to maintain that level even though they are there now...

In essence, your argument has very little basis as it relates to these Hawks. It's like saying NO team can go undefeated in the NFL. Or NO player can hit .400 in baseball. Or NO Baseball player can hit more than 61 homeruns in a season.

That is Absolute BS.

(you gotta love the pun there).

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[Diesel]

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Diesel says he is more concerned with how the Hawks play than the end result. That is EXACTLY how i approached last year and he jumped down my throat about it continually.

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No.

Last year, you made excuses for other teams losing to the Hawks...

There's a big difference in judging how we play with the hope that we get better vs. judging the situation for the basis for a lame ass excuse for the other team losing to us.

I mean, I can't believe you pull up your argument "Well, the only reason Denver loss is because they couldn't suit up everybody"... This is a Hawks fan board Luefan! I jumped down your throat then because I can't fanthom a guy making excuses for the other team losing to us. And it's still true... It doesn't matter who Denver played...They showed up and we OUTPLAYED THEM and won....

So no... You didn't do the exact same thing. I wasn't making excuses for the Bobcats Losing. I was pissed that the Hawks didn't beat them by 40!