Official Game Thread: Hawks - Nuggets

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Hawks Live trying to spin this road trip in a possible light. Most of us thought they would go 3 - 3 on this trip, and that's what they did. That's nothing to be overjoyed about though.

[Admin]

Come on Dol. You watched that game like I did. Lawson took over the game in the 3rd quarter, while Teague hardly did anything after halftime. It may have been fatigue or what not, but Teague was bad after halftime.

We needed one of our main guys to keep pace when the game was slipping away, and no one could do it. Oh well . . we got 2 home games coming up, with the battle for 4th place coming on Saturday night vs Brooklyn.

Nobody on our team played in the 2nd half after we cut the game to 4 points midway through the 4th. Certainly not blaming that on Teague or giving credit to Lawson for doing something spectacular putting up stats against a team that quit.

[Admin]

Hawks Live trying to spin this road trip in a possible light. Most of us thought they would go 3 - 3 on this trip, and that's what they did. That's nothing to be overjoyed about though.

I knew that was going to be the case, to find the silver lining in this when the fact is that we lost to an inferior Suns team and let a good opportunity go against the Lakers. I fully expected us to get beaten down tonight and thought we played better than I expected for the first 3 quarters.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Hawks Live trying to spin this road trip in a possible positive light. Most of us thought they would go 3 - 3 on this trip, and that's what they did. That's nothing to be overjoyed about though.

[benhillboy]

I guess I was optimistic hoping for 5-1 on the trip. Even with the Phoenix slip, we should've beat the Lakers. Ive seen them a lot this season, and our style of ball should beat them 4 out of 5 times regardless of bad ref calls, unusal Jamison and Artest shooting, Bean being Bean and all. I had no hope for tonight, full strength or not. 3-3 looks much better than 2-4 at this point of the season for sure. Brooklyn and Chicago are helter skelter just like us so we have an advantage of being in front at this second. I'm sure some home cooking will get the boys back on track for holding down that 4 seed. Lets Go.

[turnermx]

I don't like it but can live with it. I thought this was the only game we would lose for sure. I don't like how the team appeared to quit midway through 4th ...Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[Alex]

Ok we know no need to harp about it. Can't understand how you can just hate on a Hawk player and wish him to fail like this.

Not sure what my original post said that made you think I was hating on Jenkins or rooting against him. I don't wish him any ill will.

[Plainview1981]

You stay classy Karl leaving stars on the court vs scrubs in a blowout.

Tough to blame him... He probably couldn't tell the difference between the starters and the backups.

[Admin]

Not sure what my original post said that made you think I was hating on Jenkins or rooting against him. I don't wish him any ill will.

It's called irony. You get upset when someone criticizes Josh or points out a flaw of his and then you did the very same thing towards Jenkins here. Granted these are different extremes of criticisms but the point remains that we all have a right to voice our displeasures and criticisms of players and we all need to be tolerant of those rights.

[AHF]

Hard for me to see how Teague playing on a bum ankle with inferior teammates against a better team in their house and putting up pretty similar stats in spite of that isn't a close contest.

It is no reason to dump on Teague but no reason to try to rationalize it either. He was bested last night by a guy who has been his superior every season since the day the two of them entered the league as back-to-back picks. Teague has closed the gap between them this year and that is certainly a good thing but there is still a gap. If there wasn't a gap, we would be looking at paying Teague 7 digit salaries on his next contract so ideally he will sign with us for a smaller amount and finish closing the gap over his next deal.

[Admin]

It is no reason to dump on Teague but no reason to try to rationalize it either. He was bested last night by a guy who has been his superior every season since the day the two of them entered the league as back-to-back picks. Teague has closed the gap between them this year and that is certainly a good thing but there is still a gap. If there wasn't a gap, we would be looking at paying Teague 7 digit salaries on his next contract so ideally he will sign with us for a smaller amount and finish closing the gap over his next deal.

That's fine and I agree Lawson has been the better PG and usually wins the matchup but I disagree that Teague was bested last night. Lawson just had a much better 2nd half shooting, especially once the Hawks stopped playing defense but Teague clearly outplayed him in the first half. Either way, I don't consider the better FG efficiency of a player shooting uncontested lay ups and open 3's vs the FG efficiency of a guy having to shoot in traffic over an elite shot blocker to be something I'd call "besting him" when they had equal assists, we're close in steals and turnovers and Teague was the better rebounder.

[AHF]

That's fine and I agree Lawson has been the better PG and usually wins the matchup but I disagree that Teague was bested last night. Lawson just had a much better 2nd half shooting, especially once the Hawks stopped playing defense but Teague clearly outplayed him in the first half. Either way, I don't consider the better FG efficiency of a player shooting uncontested lay ups and open 3's vs the FG efficiency of a guy having to shoot in traffic over an elite shot blocker to be something I'd call "besting him" when they had equal assists, we're close in steals and turnovers and Teague was the better rebounder.

I consider 15 points on 17 shots to be a sucky day at the park and 18 points on 11 shots to be an excellent day. Shooting highly contested shots is the formula for a bad day. Shooting uncontested shots is the formula for a good day. Blame the team defense if you will and that is definitely a factor (of which both of these guys are a part of course since Lawson gets open looks when Teague isn't guarding him and Teague gets contested looks when he is being checked by Lawson), but I would have switched the two of them last night if I could have.

[Admin]

I consider 15 points on 17 shots to be a sucky day at the park and 18 points on 11 shots to be an excellent day. Shooting highly contested shots is the formula for a bad day. Shooting uncontested shots is the formula for a good day. Blame the team defense if you will and that is definitely a factor (of which both of these guys are a part of course since Lawson gets open looks when Teague isn't guarding him and Teague gets contested looks when he is being checked by Lawson), but I would have switched the two of them last night if I could have.

Teague got by Lawson at will last night. It wasn't until he got into the paint and had nobody to pass to that he had to take contested shots over that tough Denver front line. And keep in mind that while Teague can't stop Lawson, Ty was also running wild against Harris as well. However, through the first half when both teams were equally fresh, Teague was the better PG with 11 and 6 on 12 shots to Lawson's 7 and 5 on 5 shots. Teague and the Hawks just ran out of gas in the 2nd half.

[Gray Mule]

Of the six road games, this one was expected to go to Denver. It did.

Playing with missing pieces, then picking up two more injuries as the

game went along = the formula for disaster.

If that weren't enough, mile high Denver comes into play. Add all this to

the fact that Denver's coach doesn't know which is better, his starters

or his first five off the bench.

Yet, with all these things against the Hawks, in the middle of the 4th quarter,

Atlanta was "right there" before all the energy finally left their used up bodies

and they were unable to be competetive in the last few minutes. Denver was

at home, rested and Atlanta was on the end of a long road trip with back to

back games.

Sure, if things had gone our way, we would have been 5-1 instead of 3-3 on this

trip. Not a great stretch of road games but not that bad either.

GO HAWKS

[AHF]

Teague got by Lawson at will last night. It wasn't until he got into the paint and had nobody to pass to that he had to take contested shots over that tough Denver front line. And keep in mind that while Teague can't stop Lawson, Ty was also running wild against Harris as well. However, through the first half when both teams were equally fresh, Teague was the better PG with 11 and 6 on 12 shots to Lawson's 7 and 5 on 5 shots. Teague and the Hawks just ran out of gas in the 2nd half.

Again, 11 points on 12 shots stinks. I'll take 7 points on 5 shots every time.

Teague typically scores 11 points on 9 shots so his first half was 33% worse than a normal game for him as far as the bottomline for his shots.

Edited March 5, 2013 by AHF

[Admin]

Again, 11 points on 12 shots stinks. I'll take 7 points on 5 shots every time. Teague typically scores 11 points on 9 shots so his first half was 33% worse than a normal game for him as far as the bottomline for his shots.

Sure we would all take that, but that doesn't define being "bested" when everything else is equal. And considering he did that on an ankle sprain that looked pretty nasty I'm damn impressed he came back into the game so quickly.

[AHF]

Sure we would all take that, but that doesn't define being "bested" when everything else is equal. And considering he did that on an ankle sprain that looked pretty nasty I'm damn impressed he came back into the game so quickly.

We can agree to disagree. I think Josh Smith is bested (offensively) every time he has one of those "takes 18 shots to score 15 points" kinds of games. Teague had a Josh Smith kind of first half and game in terms of his scoring efficiency against the Nuggets.

[DrReality]

Didn't look ready to at last night

[Admin]

We can agree to disagree. I think Josh Smith is bested (offensively) every time he has one of those "takes 18 shots to score 15 points" kinds of games. Teague had a Josh Smith kind of first half and game in terms of his scoring efficiency against the Nuggets.

I can agree that Teague did not shoot as well as he's capable and he was inefficient but outside of that he played pretty well and he didn't take any shots that he shouldn't have taken. That's the difference for me in him taking 17 shots to score 15 vs a typical Josh game where he'd do the same. Hell you can even use Josh's game last night as the example where he also took 17 shots to score 15 points but he wasn't missing shots that he normally makes, he was missing the same poor shots that he misses more often than not. But I know your point on this and I'm happy to agree to disagree here.

[AHF]

I can agree that Teague did not shoot as well as he's capable and he was inefficient but outside of that he played pretty well and he didn't take any shots that he shouldn't have taken. That's the difference for me in him taking 17 shots to score 15 vs a typical Josh game where he'd do the same. Hell you can even use Josh's game last night as the example where he also took 17 shots to score 15 points but he wasn't missing shots that he normally makes, he was missing the same poor shots that he misses more often than not. But I know your point on this and I'm happy to agree to disagree here.

That is a fair point on not being critical of Teague for taking good shots and simply missing them on an off night. I don't think that is relevant to a single game performance comparison (for the night he was equally bad as Josh regardless of the reason) but it is certainly relevant to any criticism of his decision-making which is where Josh really gets faulted.