'Squawk illogic I've never understood.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Wow, we must have lost the game tonight judging by all of the negative posts tonight. It's getting so bad around here that I think some fans would be happier if we were 6-12 instead of 12-6. We gotta shake this loser mentality.

My sentiments exactly. God forbid we lose the next 4 road games. It'll be Armageddon around here. It wouldn't shock me one bit, if we lost 3 of them though. Then we have the Cavs next Saturday. Very tough stretch of games coming up. Let's see if this board is in complete meltdown mode by next Sunday.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Smith took some wide open threes. What's the big deal? He gives us sooooo much in terms of post scoring, rebounding, and defense. Why is everything so negative around here? The dude shot 50% from the field last night, scored in the post, and made some great passes. That's what I mean when I say that things are so joyless around here.

:computer8:

A lot of Smith's 3 point attempts come with the clock winding down. I just wish that he'd do what Marvin was doing last year, and set up a step inside the 3 point line, to give him a 21 foot jumper, instead of a 25 foot jumper.

If you look at Smith's "hotspots" data ( http://www.nba.com/hotspots ), you'll see that when he shoots a jumper, you want him in an area where he's looking straight on at the basket. Ironically, the 3 that he made, was a straight on three at the top of the arc. If he shoots from there, or just outside the top of the key on the right side of the court, he's liable to shoot a higher percentage on his jumper.

And that's not just been the trend for him this year, that's been the trend for him almost his entire career.

The problem, is that he made that 3 pretty early, so that gave him confidence to shoot it more.

Other than that, I completely agree with you.

[Plainview1981]

there is something called an "UGLY WIN" and this was one. everybody except marvin played ugly. oh well im not finna sit her and b*tch and complain talking bout "oh smith took 5 threes" or "joe is cold tonight and turning the ball over". Yes smith played bad but so did joe and others. There is 82 games in a season i cant b*tch about everyone of them. but i let yall back to yalls cat fight. MEOW

peace!

Because you only beat sh!tty teams playing this way and that's about all the Hawks can beat with RARE exceptions. You play like they did last night again SA and you get your Ass beat really badly. Games like last night are why the Hawks will get it handed to them by the likes of Cleveland and SA. Which we already seen what happened when the Hawks played Cleveland earlier.

Last year the team averaged only 78PPG against SA, 86PPG against Boston, 93PPG against NO and 82PPG against Houston.

Why? Them playing like they played last night.

[Plainview1981]

My sentiments exactly. God forbid we lose the next 4 road games. It'll be Armageddon around here. It wouldn't shock me one bit, if we lost 3 of them though. Then we have the Cavs next Saturday. Very tough stretch of games coming up. Let's see if this board is in complete meltdown mode by next Sunday.

You don't become a good team by beating the Bullets and the Bucks. If they can't win any games against the likes of Houston and Dallas they have no right to call themselves a good team. On the real side, expecting an outstanding record on this little road trip is a pipe dream. But they need one quality one.

Edited December 6, 2008 by Hotlanta1981

[Gray Mule]

Josh hit his first 3 attempt, if I remember correctly. I know that at least one of the

other was with only a second or two on the clock - No time for anything else.

He's still rusty from the injury. He shouldn't make it a habit of taking many 3's.

Still, he gets excited when he does hit them and wants more of them. That's

the bad part of his 3 point attempts.

No, Hawks are not a great team. Not too many of them around. We gotta win

those that we should win and pick up some we really shouldn't win. That will

mean a lot as we continue to learn and grow.

GO HAWKS!!!!

[f_town]

youre not missing that much unfortunately

mainly militant Josh Smith jock-riders who complain if he isnt playing all 48 minutes, and people that insist on using garish text colors so i have to put them on ignore

its all good tho :P

lol

i found out you can strip colors and bold and such under the 'Time' menu on the chat thingy

so its all good now...nice client

hope we dont get spanked too bad by big D :P

Edited December 7, 2008 by f_town

[TruJerz]

Because you only beat sh!tty teams playing this way and that's about all the Hawks can beat with RARE exceptions. You play like they did last night again SA and you get your Ass beat really badly. Games like last night are why the Hawks will get it handed to them by the likes of Cleveland and SA. Which we already seen what happened when the Hawks played Cleveland earlier.

Last year the team averaged only 78PPG against SA, 86PPG against Boston, 93PPG against NO and 82PPG against Houston.

Why? Them playing like they played last night.

i see what you're saying but the Hawks have been playing well this season..i think we can beat any team in the league. When we played the Cavs, we were without J Smooth. if we had J Smooth all season long, i dont think the Hawks lose 4 games yet. we would have beaten NJ twice and Indiana for sure i think. Cleveland and Boston(tough lost) would have probably be our only loses..we must be doing something right.

and bringing up last yrs stats is irrelevant because we are much improved this season

[Plainview1981]

i see what you're saying but the Hawks have been playing well this season..i think we can beat any team in the league. When we played the Cavs, we were without J Smooth. if we had J Smooth all season long, i dont think the Hawks lose 4 games yet. we would have beaten NJ twice and Indiana for sure i think. Cleveland and Boston(tough lost) would have probably be our only loses..we must be doing something right.

and bringing up last yrs stats is irrelevant because we are much improved this season

10 out of the 12 wins have came against sub .500 teams. The Hawks squeaked out alot of those games. The Hawks are 2-5 in games where the other team has a winning record. I don't believe the Hawks beat NJ both times even with Josh. They barely got by the Knicks the other night and were getting blown out in Dallas in the 3rd period.

The hawks still do all those things that cause you to lose against good defensive teams.

-Poor shot selection

-Bad defense

-Poor overall fundamentals

-Going through parts of games while not giving full effort

-Turnovers

-Not having a gameplan on the offensive end

They did all these things last season and are doing the same things this season.

Edited December 7, 2008 by Hotlanta1981

[TheNorthCydeRises]

You don't become a good team by beating the Bullets and the Bucks. If they can't win any games against the likes of Houston and Dallas they have no right to call themselves a good team. On the real side, expecting an outstanding record on this little road trip is a pipe dream. But they need one quality one.

Actually, you do Hot. Because if you can't consistently beat the teams you're supposed to beat, you'll ( more than likely ) not be in a position to improve as a team.

That's the one MAJOR difference I've seen in the Hawks since Bibby came on board last year. We're beating the lesser talented teams about 75% of the time. What we need to do, is really start holding serve at home.

When Boston and Cleveland come to Philips, we need to win at least one of those games, for us to be legit good team. I don't expect the Hawks to go on the road and beat the upper echilon teams. Not saying it can't happen, but I don't expect it. But I do expect them to beat those types of teams at least 50% of the time at home, for them to be considered a "good team".

[Plainview1981]

Actually, you do Hot. Because if you can't consistently beat the teams you're supposed to beat, you'll ( more than likely ) not be in a position to improve as a team.

That's the one MAJOR difference I've seen in the Hawks since Bibby came on board last year. We're beating the lesser talented teams about 75% of the time. What we need to do, is really start holding serve at home.

When Boston and Cleveland come to Philips, we need to win at least one of those games, for us to be legit good team. I don't expect the Hawks to go on the road and beat the upper echilon teams. Not saying it can't happen, but I don't expect it. But I do expect them to beat those types of teams at least 50% of the time at home, for them to be considered a "good team".

That's not totally what I meant. Of course you have to beat able to beat those teams to be a good team, but you can't be a good team until you can beat teams over .500. Right now, the Hawks are a mediocre team despite the record.

[crimedog]

Hotlanta loves the Hawks and their flawed players. He can't get enough of them. Otherwise why would he be here?

[HawkItus]

Of course you become good by beating the bad teams. That has got to be the craziest thing I've read. You know why you don't earn the meat of your wins against good teams? Because if everybody did that they wouldn't have good records and therefore wouldn't be good teams. As bad as everyone says we are playing we have a top 5 record in the conference. If we do no better than that, we are playoff bound.

[Plainview1981]

Of course you become good by beating the bad teams. That has got to be the craziest thing I've read. You know why you don't earn the meat of your wins against good teams? Because if everybody did that they wouldn't have good records and therefore wouldn't be good teams. As bad as everyone says we are playing we have a top 5 record in the conference. If we do no better than that, we are playoff bound.

If your going to get whipped by every good team in the league you don't deserve to be called a good team. Period. The Hawks beat plenty of mediocre teams, but usually when they run up against teams like Houston we find out why the Hawks aren't a really good team. Yeah, your not going to win every big matchup, but you should be able to win some and the Hawks have totally struggled against teams like SA. If I'm not mistaken, the Hawks averaged 78PPG against them last season.

Not so good.

Edited December 10, 2008 by Hotlanta1981

[exodus]

It isn't that simple.

Since the Hawks have been losers for years we have become conditioned to think not just in terms of wins and losses. If we thought that way this board wouldn't have had many posts the last few years.

Ultimately the way a team plays is what determines the record at the end of the year. that is what people are paying attention to, how the team plays. If you have bad habits that you keep repeating it is just a matter of time until it bites you in the ass. Just because you escape with wins in poorly played games early in the year doesn't mean you can win consistently that way all season long.

This is exactly what i was talking about. Every team is going to go through cold shooting spells at times. But if you are consistently making dumb mistakes it is going to cost you games. The Hawks were in great position to win each game in the Texas Triangle and the Boston game but lost them all. You might be able to get away with poor offensive execution against bad teams but against good teams, not so much.

Just because the Hawks came away with victories against bad teams doesn't change the fact that their execution was poor. I am not going to celebrate dumb basketball just because they get a W against a weak team.