Daily Dime: Hawks keep on soaring

[Admin]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-091116

ATLANTA -- The best record in the East does not belong to Cleveland, Boston or Orlando. Nor does an undefeated home record, nor the conference's highest scoring average, nor the coveted top spot in Marc Stein's Power Rankings this week.

All of those things belong to the Atlanta Hawks, who continued their surprising start by outlasting Portland in overtime, 99-95, on a night when it seemed little was going their way. The Hawks' offense was far short of its usual standard, the home crowd was AWOL, the team fell behind by a dozen in the second half, and a late gaffe nearly gave the game away after they had it won.

Atlanta prevailed anyway, in a contest that may have set a new league record for use of the word "grind" afterward.

"What a game, huh?" said Hawks coach Mike Woodson. "It says a whole lot about the guys in the locker room. We just held in there, kept grinding."

Befuddled by Portland's zone defense for most of the first three quarters, Atlanta fired blanks and struggled to get shots near the basket. In a 24-minute stretch from the late first quarter to the late third quarter, Atlanta mustered only 35 points and fell behind by a dozen before rallying behind their defense and the play of Joe Johnson.

"Normally I'm happy when teams play zone because we have enough shooters," Mike Woodson said. "We had good looks but we couldn't knock them down."

Looked in a battle of low-key star guards, Johnson get the better of Brandon Roy with 35 points and nine assists, including 18 in the fourth quarter and overtime. He appeared to ice the game with two free throws at the end of regulation that put the Hawks up by three with 4.1 seconds left, but the Hawks failed to foul twice -- first when Greg Oden caught the inbounds pass and again when Rudy Fernandez took two dribbles before launching a game-tying 3 over Al Horford to send the game to overtime.

Fortunately, Johnson took over in overtime, taking advantage of two factors that weighed heavily against Portland -- first, that it was their fifth road game in seven nights, and second, that he was bigger than Roy, Rudy Fernandez or Steve Blake and one of those three had to defend him. He shot over those two for three jump-shot buckets in overtime to put the Hawks up by six with 1:42 left and all but seal the game.

"This road trip was very long," said Fernandez. "Our legs got tired tonight."

The Blazers were upset that three suspicious calls went Atlanta's way in the final minute of overtime to help seal the deal: A debatable out-of-bounds call on Blake, a mystery foul against Greg Oden on an offensive rebound, and an uncalled goaltend on a late Rudy Fernandez shot. That might have helped make the ending more interesting, especially if Atlanta's brain-lock on fouling when up by three stretched into overtime; nonetheless, the Hawks had established a big advantage by that point.

Instead, the Blazers should lament two other failings -- the inability to control their defensive board, and an offensive tailspin at the start of the fourth quarter. Normally one of the league's best rebounding teams, Portland allowed 15 offensive boards that led to 22 second-chance points for Atlanta. My scoresheet had another three offensive boards that weren't credited to a Hawk and instead swept under the rug in the team-rebound category, making for 18 misses regained by the Hawks.

"Second-chance points at the end [was] one of the key things that caused us to lose the game," said Blazers coach Nate McMillan. "We didn't finish plays by rebounding the ball."

The zone was partly to blame, as it's always harder to box out in that alignment, but weary legs may have been a bigger factor. Greg Oden in particular seemed slow to the ball, pulling down only seven boards in 34 minutes despite the torrent of missed shots coming from both sides.

The Blazers would have won anyway if the offense hadn't melted down late. Portland scored only 18 points in the fourth quarter, including three on the heave by Fernandez, and had only four in the first 4:45 of overtime until two more bombs by Fernandez made the final score closer. That's 22 points in 17 minutes, and one particular stretch will gall them: The first six minutes of the fourth.

Sporting a nine-point lead, the Blazers scored only one field goal in the first 6:12 of the quarter -- a dunk by Juwan Howard, believe it or not -- while committing three turnovers and missing eight other shots. Oden missed three close-range shots, but otherwise Portland struggled to get clean looks and settled for contested jumpers or, in one case, a rare three-point attempt by Andre Miller. By the time the run was over, the Hawks had tied the game at 72.

This was one spot where the Blazers really could have used Hawk-killer Travis Outlaw, who is out indefinitely with a broken bone in his foot. With Roy resting to start the fourth, Portland found itself short on shot-creators and the Hawks took advantage. They'll have to cope with this situation with small lineups like tonight's for the foreseeable future: With Nicolas Batum also injured for the next several weeks, Martell Webster is the only true small forward left on the roster.

For the home side, the one disappointment was how few people were there to see their dramatic win. Atlantans who stayed home to see Pau Gasol's "CSI:Miami" debut made a horrible mistake, as the few that showed up were treated to one of the most thrilling games of the season. One hopes more of them will show up on Wednesday, when Dwyane Wade and the Heat show up -- the announced crowd of 12,977 was pathetic enough for a game of this magnitude, but for much of the first half the arena appeared to have less than half that many people.

"We need the support," said Woodson. "Amazing things can happen when the house is filled."

And as for that top spot in the Power Rankings?

"Somebody mentioned that to me, in the pregame," said Woodson. "I don't even know what the Power Rankings are. We're just trying to stay at the top."

With more "grinds" like this one, they just might stick there for a while.

[gsuteke]

If the Hawks keep winning National writers will become the team's "beat writers"

[Admin]

If the Hawks keep winning National writers will become the team's "beat writers"

If we could get anyway to be our beat writer Hollinger would be the best since he knows us so well. He's the only ESPN writer that I really respect when he talks about the Hawks since he actually knows what he's talking about and not just regurgitating other writers.

[macdaddy]

If we could get anyway to be our beat writer Hollinger would be the best since he knows us so well. He's the only ESPN writer that I really respect when he talks about the Hawks since he actually knows what he's talking about and not just regurgitating other writers.

I used to like Hollinger but it seems he is often wrong. I think he predicted the Hawks to be sub-.500 last year and not make the playoffs? This year didn't he say that we didn't improve much and are likely to slide? Maybe i'm just spreading rumors.

Here it is:

Hawks filled out roster after only going eight deep a year ago, but that's really all that changed and they're no longer young enough to bank on internal improvement. Looks like another year atop East's pretender heap.

He neglected to consider how much a difference it would make if Smoove decided to rebound and play inside.

[benhillboy]

I prefer Hollinger, Stein, and all of those bandwagoneers to stay far away from what we have brewing. He had the Bucks at the top of the ranking for a week last year: he's just a stat geek.

[mrhonline]

Hollinger isn't a bandwagoner, FWIW. He's been to a number of Hawks' games.

And the attendance issues in Atlanta are annoying...

[Admin]

I used to like Hollinger but it seems he is often wrong. I think he predicted the Hawks to be sub-.500 last year and not make the playoffs? This year didn't he say that we didn't improve much and are likely to slide? Maybe i'm just spreading rumors.

Here it is:

He neglected to consider how much a difference it would make if Smoove decided to rebound and play inside.

As did ALL of us! Nobody expected Josh to all of a sudden in his 6th year give up the 3pt shot and start hustling big time on the glass.

Hollinger is a numbers guy and his predictions are based off of those and saying he expected us to be the best of the rest after the big 3 wasn't an insult. I don't know of anyone here that said we'd be better than Orlando, Boston, or Cleveland and some here predicted worse.

[macdaddy]

As did ALL of us! Nobody expected Josh to all of a sudden in his 6th year give up the 3pt shot and start hustling big time on the glass.

Hollinger is a numbers guy and his predictions are based off of those and saying he expected us to be the best of the rest after the big 3 wasn't an insult. I don't know of anyone here that said we'd be better than Orlando, Boston, or Cleveland and some here predicted worse.

I'm not saying I'm offended by his predictions. I'm just saying his recent track record with the Hawks has been wrong. Exhibit A was that we wouldn't make the playoffs last year. Its not totally numbers. There is certainly an opinion in there. He was pretty far off since we won 47 games and got the 4th spot easily. Then the comment that we are too old to expect internal improvement is certainly not based on numbers. I don't think its true that no one thought Josh would make this kind of leap (so far). In fact i think everyone expected it a lot sooner and some had given up. He's played like this before many times just not consistently. Expecting him to start making 3s would have been crazy. Expecting him to be more consistent in his 6th year and that having a huge impact on the team isn't a reach.

Hollinger seems like a good guy and probably a Hawks fan. I just don't find his numbers and predictions all that insightful. You know, since he's wrong all the time. Although he does have us at 4 again which may be the case.

[Guest]

Yesterday, the Bucks and Mavs had an equally exciting game. The Bucks are playing well, but only 13,000 showed up to that game. Does Hollinger or anyone from ESPN care to mention those poor attendance numbers? No, just mention the Hawks.

Its a Monday night game for crying out loud, those are notoriously low attendance games.

[JackB1]

I agree with Hollinger.....the place was pathetically empty last night. I partially blame the local media for doing nothing to hype the Hawks unbelievable start to this season. You never hear them chatting up the Hawks on 790 or 680 and its frustrating. They talk about the Dawgs way more than the Hawks, even though the 2 teams are playing at opposite ends of the spectrum.

[WraithSentinel]

I knew last night crowd was sad. I didn't think it was that poor. Sometimes you just got as what more do you want when it come to Atlanta? The Hawks are everything they wanted in a team and yet the support is still garbage.

[Deeman]

I agree with Hollinger.....the place was pathetically empty last night. I partially blame the local media for doing nothing to hype the Hawks unbelievable start to this season. You never hear them chatting up the Hawks on 790 or 680 and its frustrating. They talk about the Dawgs way more than the Hawks, even though the 2 teams are playing at opposite ends of the spectrum.

We are getting called out.

http://www.raptorsforum.com/f/f6/atlanta-sports-fans-f-ing-suck-11511.html

I feel bad because I don't live that far from Phillips Arena. This college is just kicking my *ss though. I try to make it to atleast 15 games a year. If I had a job I would honestly go to every game.

Edited November 17, 2009 by Deeman

[JackB1]

Hard to argue with that post. I think some of the reason is how spread out Atlanta area is and how you have to fight the horrible traffic to get to a game.