Official Game Preview: Hawks at Rockets

[Atlantaholic]

I figure Dennis is banged up but there are no reports of it. He left the Indiana game early and didn't come back. Today he would have made a huge difference as Shelvin Mack was beyond dreadful, like Korvers shorter blacker twin out there tonight.  Pretty much every significant Houston run came when we rested Teague and Millsap/Horford.

[lethalweapon3]

BEST CALENDAR YEARS: MOST WINS

1. 1997 -- 59
2. 2015 -- 58
3. 1987 -- 57
4. 2012 -- 56
5. 1986 -- 55

BEST CALENDAR YEARS: BEST WINNING PERCENTAGE

1. 1997 -- 70.24%
2. 1986 -- 69.62%
3. 1987 -- 69.51%
4. 2015 -- 68.24%
5. 1960 (STL) -- 65.38%

~lw3

[lethalweapon3]

He Lives!

 

~lw3

[Lurker]

Hate to break it to you, but it sounds like to me with reading between the lines from the coach that Schröder is out of the regular rotation. Which by the way things looked tonight (without watching) it'll be even more of a disaster with Mack playing than Schröder. Guys like Mo on twitter are going to get their wish with Mack playing and it ain't gonna be pretty.

[ATLHawks3]

16 minutes ago, Lurker said:

Hate to break it to you, but it sounds like to me with reading between the lines from the coach that Schröder is out of the regular rotation. Which by the way things looked tonight (without watching) it'll be even more of a disaster with Mack playing than Schröder. Guys like Mo on twitter are going to get their wish with Mack playing and it ain't gonna be pretty.

I think he just got an off night. He's been playing great lately, outside of the Pacer game, so I see no reason why Bud would take him out the rotation.

[Atlantaholic]

If he is indeed in the dog house, I'm sure he will not be there much longer.

[JTB]

1 hour ago, Lurker said:

Hate to break it to you, but it sounds like to me with reading between the lines from the coach that Schröder is out of the regular rotation. Which by the way things looked tonight (without watching) it'll be even more of a disaster with Mack playing than Schröder. Guys like Mo on twitter are going to get their wish with Mack playing and it ain't gonna be pretty.

If he's in the dog house it's because of off court issues. He's been playing well the past 6 or 8 games now 

[benhillboy]

I fell asleep on the entire second half.  Excuse me as I end it all, y'all take care.

[High5]

Imagine being told last year that during a back-to-back Korver would go 0/18 from 3 and Horford would hit 5/8. Hell, I wouldn't have believed it a week ago. Really gutty win, though. Reminded me a bit of last season. I remember Harden trying to take DMC late in the game and getting shut down. Baze got him tonight. The help defense from the bigs was clutch in both games, too. 

It was also nice to see Edy thrown into the fire. He looked shaky as expected, but still had a couple of nice buckets and picked up 6 boards in only 10 minutes. That's practically unheard of for us.

[bumpyphish1]

8 hours ago, Lurker said:

Hate to break it to you, but it sounds like to me with reading between the lines from the coach that Schröder is out of the regular rotation. Which by the way things looked tonight (without watching) it'll be even more of a disaster with Mack playing than Schröder. Guys like Mo on twitter are going to get their wish with Mack playing and it ain't gonna be pretty.

You are A WONDERFUL PERSON.

You should have to take a week off for all the WONDERFUL COMMENTARY you've spewed tonight alone.

[BrazilianHawk]

What a win! What a win!!! After that horrible 1st quarter I was afraid they would score 150 on us, but thanks to Bud's adjustments and some really gritty play from our birds we were able to have a big smile last night. Aside from KK, who needs to be benched ASAP, our guys were great last night.

I'm really impressed with what Edy did out there, aside from that WFT moment, of course. Maybe he's got a chance to be a regular rotation guy, after all. Bud, please give him more minutes.  Let him try and develop into a nice player. He's got the rebounding ability, he can put the bal in the basket and he hits his FTs at a very reasonable rate. JUST LET HIM PLAY!

[Guest]

We had every excuse to lose this game and lose big.

2nd game of back to back on the road, down 19 points, 0-11 from our starting SG, 19 bench points, Houston making more freethrows (26)  that we attempted (25).

Teague, Baze, Millsap and Horford carried the game.

I almost ran off the road when I heard Steve Holman say 'Edy is checking in' - He played well, didn't looked totally lost, 6 points, 6 rebounds 1 steal in 10 minutes - play that man

Way to close out 2015 in style.

Let's look for this kind of effort for 2016.

Go Hawks!!!

 

[macdaddy]

Edy was really good considering it's his first real game and he was playing against Dwight.   That guy should be in the rotation.   

Great comeback and great win.   Teague is the man.   Baze, Horf, Sap all had great games but Teague was driving it all.   Korver was awful but i blame Bud for continuing to throw him out there.  Thabo should have played more.   Eventually Korver will return to form though, guaranteed.

Here's my complaint though.   I feel like i've been a huge homer for years but we're kidding ourselves if we think that we can contend with Patterson, Moose, Mack in the regular rotation.   I know Bud loves Patterson but I just don't see it.  He makes some nice plays and then he makes some that look like he doesn't belong on the court.   We need at least one more quality wing before the playoffs roll around.   

[macdaddy]

The other thing is that the Refs have been absolutely horrible this season.   I honestly don't know what's going on.    And i'm not saying that they've been horrible against us.   Hell we may have benefitted more than the Rockets from terrible calls last night.     I just don't understand how 3 refs can't get some of these calls so wrong.    And they are so inconsistent.   Look the other way on horrible muggings then call a touch foul at the other end.     

[benhillboy]

I'm just overjoyed the taste from losing to those guys isn't in our mouths for 5 days.  That's like cold gritty oatmeal with no seasoning.  Now it's Kool-Aid flavored jello.  

Rockets fans hating them some Harden these days.  Unfortunately "they don't matter."

[Lurker]

I’ve seen most of the second half of this game now, and here’s my main comments:

Don’t really mind going to hack-a, but the only reason why I can come up with for doing it is to keep Harden from getting his cheapie fouls after they got in the bonus.

Now here’s the good part of it. Millsap and Bazemore were using Harden’s tricks while he wasn’t able to down the stretch. Millsap flopped to create extra emphasis on being pushed inside on the defensive end which got an offensive foul and Bazemore was definitely bailed out twice on two fouls.

Now I don’t care. If you blow a 19 point lead, you fully deserve that L.

[macdaddy]

12 hours ago, Lurker said:

I’ve seen most of the second half of this game now, and here’s my main comments:

Don’t really mind going to hack-a, but the only reason why I can come up with for doing it is to keep Harden from getting his cheapie fouls after they got in the bonus.

Now here’s the good part of it. Millsap and Bazemore were using Harden’s tricks while he wasn’t able to down the stretch. Millsap flopped to create extra emphasis on being pushed inside on the defensive end which got an offensive foul and Bazemore was definitely bailed out twice on two fouls.

Now I don’t care. If you blow a 19 point lead, you fully deserve that L.

Honestly I started to think the main bonus for the Hackathon was that we didn't have to expend energy playing D.  

[benhillboy]

27 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Honestly I started to think the main bonus for the Hackathon was that we didn't have to expend energy playing D.  

There are so many advantages it isn't even funny.  The coaches that allow it to happen don't  understand percentages nor how important momentum and offensive flow is.  I'd love to see the winning percentages of teams that have intentionally fouled a poor line shooter 5 times or more in a game.  It's gotta be around .700 easy.

[Guest]

It may not be pretty basketball to watch but anything to win.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

It may not be pretty basketball to watch but anything to win.

Honestly, I don't see why folks (primarily LAC/HOU fans) get so up in arms about it not being "pretty".  Clipper fans want to watch more whining and complaining from CP2, Blake and the rest of that band of b*tches?  Roggets fans wanna watch more of Jaimes flailing and flopping around and dancing?  Trust me, they're not missing much when teams unleash the hack-a.