Hoopshype ranks the coaches...Popovich is tops but zld gets high marks

[Diesel]

We continue to attribute the 2010 Hawks porous defense and lack of offense in that Orlando series to Woody being a bad coach. It does not add up guys. The 53-win regular season should have been enough to convince mgmt and fans that Woody was a capable coach. It's true that the Magic embarrassed the Hawks, but how much of that should be attributed to Woody?

Joe Johnson numbers games 1 through 4:

0.364 / 10 pts

0.313 / 19

0.200 / 08

0.333 / 14

With Joe being injured (or in a horrible slump), Bibby being a liability on defense, and Orlando's personnel being key factors, I do not understand how anyone can use that series to draw a conclusion on Woody.

Nope! I do not like dem apples.

I'll rest my case with this:

Lawrence Frank?

I could be wrong, but I think he coached a team that ended up with the worst record in league history.

smh at Joe D picking Frank over Woody.

This is why I think Woody not having a Job has more to do with his communication skills and less to do with his ability to coach. He's just being outshined by more polished speakers like Mark Jackson and Frank.

Woody's failing with us wasn't his communication. His failing with us is the fact that he didn't run an offensive plan. He like the ideas of iso Joe and let the team run the offense because it keep his best players happy and efficiency high. However, good coaching beats Iso ball every day of the week.

About his 53 wins. We have talent. And Woodrow was blessed with a regular season with very few injuries. But to call our regular season as a reason to not fire Woody was to miss what happened on the court. On the court, Woody's offense fail and he didn't make adjustments and the players quit on him.

[Diesel]

Hawks losses in the 2011 playoffs

Average margin of losses in the 2011 playoffs: 15.5 points

So is that really a coaching problem that we lost like that in the playoffs . . . or a personnel problem? I guess the fact that we're "only" losing by 15 ppg is better than us losing by 20+ ppg? Instead of getting destroyed by 30+ points in a few games, we only get destroyed by 20+ points in a few games. Progress, I guess.

Even when we were getting destroyed during the regular season, you can't put those losses solely on Drew. One of the things that kills this team is that when we start going south, we can't get easy buckets or points at the FT line. As solid as Smith and Horford are, we just can't throw the ball to them down on the block and see them score at the rim or draw a foul. As solid as JJ is, he's still going to rely on the floater when he drives to the hole, rather than going hard to the rim looking to draw contact. Same with Jamal.

As for the Milwaukee - Atlanta series, we all know that whatever went down before Game 3 of that series ( including Josh Smith's comments, which lit a fire under Milwaukee ), had a factor in that series. They simply outplayed us in Milwaukee, despite not having Bogut. Then when we came home, our backcourt ( JJ and especially Jamal ) sold us out. It wasn't until we took control of that game defensively in Game 6, that we regained complete control of the series.

That's why I'm not going to totally villify Drew as a coach. It's also the reason why I didn't totally villify Woody as a coach either. Both, in my eyes, are C level type coaches with B- level talent ( as a whole ). I just can't prop up Drew over Woody, seeing that the major difference in our 2nd round wins vs Chicago, was JJ finally playing like an All-Star in that round, instead of a guy that played like he didn't belong on that level. The Hawks are just too flawed as a team, until we get the right pieces in here to compliment what our stars don't give us.

Well, Milwaukee took advantage of our real weakness. We are not emotionally strong. Milwaukee and Chicago knew that if they slapped us in the mouth hard enough, we would lose our composure and play like losers. And for the most part, we did.

BUt so far, a LD coached team is mentally stronger than any Woody coached team.

That LD coached team in the playoffs took the best than Orlando could dish and were unphased. Even with Chicago pushing out it's best and being the best in the league, our team was not intimidated. The thing that I learned from Chicago is that coaching is what brings the mental toughness. There is a way to coach a team to be mentally tough. Thibbs does a great Job of that with that team. LD actually does a good job of that (so far). I think we still have some loose cannons, but you're right in one thing... we do need some dependable low post players. We can be tough as we want to be, without having a way to get easy scores, the game becomes frustrating. Sorta why I'm glad we have Hinrich. He's mentally tough. Teague has started to prove to me that he's mentally tough. We have PGs. We just have to get or bigs in line.

[NineOhTheRino]

Looks like Woody will join the Knicks

I would not be surprised if he's the HC by the trade deadline.

[coachx]

And fans are supposed to act like LD did such a superior job of coaching in the 2nd round over Woody? Nah . . . the players finally did what they're supposed to do in the playoffs . . . STEP UP. The Game 6 loss to Chicago had nothing to do with Drew. That was all on the players. Just like the Game 1 win had nothing to do with Drew.

I give Drew credit for the MAgic series where he started Collins and Hinrich. I just imagine Teague being far less aggressive and assertive in the that series with D. Howard patrolling the paint. Perimeter shooting is always at a premium when playing against D. Howard.

The Hinrich injury was just like a divine intervention to give this team hope for the future. Jeff Teague stepped up big time. The better 2nd round showing is all Jeff Teague. I can't give Larry Drew too much credit for that one.