Official PLAY-IN Game Thread: Hornets at Hawks

[Diesel]

The image of Trae diving on the floor for a loose ball when we were up by 27 should be imprinted on the brain of every media person who didn't vote Trae 1st or 2nd Team all NBA. 

 

[terrell]

8 hours ago, JTB said:

Yup bring him back! It is what it is!

 

Gallo is like that guy at “The Y” hustling people. lol

You just don’t expect what he gives when you look at him.... 

 

[Diesel]

4 minutes ago, terrell said:

Gallo is like that guy at “The Y” hustling people. lol

You just don’t expect what he gives when you look at him.... 

 

He's the Terry Pendleton of this team. 

[terrell]

9 hours ago, Plainview1981 said:

An actual team effort where everyone played with a sense of urgency?

 

It's been awhile. But it was a great team effort where the team clearly benefitted from last years playoffs.

Hunter showed some worth in the 3rd period. It just sucks that he hasn't been that aggressive more often.

I'm glad we won so handily, almost like a warm-up for Cleveland. We should come in with the right headspace and energy....

[Diesel]

15 minutes ago, terrell said:

Gallo is like that guy at “The Y” hustling people. lol

You just don’t expect what he gives when you look at him.... 

 

He's the Robert Alford of the Hawks. 

[Diesel]

8 minutes ago, terrell said:

I'm glad we won so handily, almost like a warm-up for Cleveland. We should come in with the right headspace and energy....

Cleveland is a different monster, but they are not sneaking up on people anymore. 

Garland, Love, and Mobley are a very dangerous three headed monster.   All of them can shoot.  They will be at home.  It's going to take a better game than we played against Charlotte to beat them.   The defense has to be as good.  The offense has to be steady.   On the road vs. Brooklyn, they showed no quit. They turned a blow out into a game.  And that was on the road.  We have to have that playoff intensity and feed off the energy.   This is another one and done.  

[Gray Mule]

Hornets came to Atlanta with a game plan.  It worked!  Stop Trae Young from scoring by any means possible. This great Hawk had hit only one shot and had two points from the line.  He had failed to score in nine other attempts.  Double teams.  Pressure.  It was all working!

Meanwhile, Nate and his crew has their own game plan.  Score inside.  Score outside.  With the Hornet defense playing two on one with Trae, there was no way they could cover four with three.  And, it was working!

Hawks planned to apply pressure on defense against the Hornets.  They did.  It worked!  Due to the defense of the Hawks, Hornets were not able to score at will and run away and hide.  They couldn't get a lead before halftime.  Then, in the third quarter the wheels came off.  Hawks were the team running away from the Hornets.  All the air was leaking out of their balloon.

The run continued to the end of the game.  Stubborn, one track mind Nate refused to play the end of the bench players with five minutes left and a lead of over thirty points.  Nope.  With a time out the change would have been easy.  Instead, it was close to two minutes remaining when he finally relented and let them play.  They responded by drilling two three point shots!

Win or go home until next season.  Hawks do it again in Cleveland.  

GO ATL HAWKS !!

[Atlantaholic]

3 hours ago, NBASupes said:

The Indy game simply was a young team not ready for the show. This one, they were ready but Atlanta played possession by possession Basketball and Charlotte had no clue what that is.

They were outmatched yesterday, but not hustling for loose balls, not giving effort on defense. It's the entire season on the line. It almost seemed like they were happy to go on vacation rather than make the playoffs. 

[Atlantaholic]

2 hours ago, Diesel said:

The image of Trae diving on the floor for a loose ball when we were up by 27 should be imprinted on the brain of every media person who didn't vote Trae 1st or 2nd Team all NBA. 

 

Play of the game.

[kg01]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

Cleveland is a different monster, but they are not sneaking up on people anymore. 

Garland, Love, and Mobley are a very dangerous three headed monster.   All of them can shoot.  They will be at home.  It's going to take a better game than we played against Charlotte to beat them.   The defense has to be as good.  The offense has to be steady.   On the road vs. Brooklyn, they showed no quit. They turned a blow out into a game.  And that was on the road.  We have to have that playoff intensity and feed off the energy.   This is another one and done.  

My only gripe with what you said is the bolded.  That game was over, that was just BKN taking their foot off the gas.

We definitely need to play a better game than last night.  Hornets got exposed mightily.  And the idea that Ball > Trae was shown to be a fallacy.  Trae's command of the game far exceeds Balls.

[Atlantaholic]

2 minutes ago, kg01 said:

My only gripe with what you said is the bolded.  That game was over, that was just BKN taking their foot off the gas.

We definitely need to play a better game than last night.  Hornets got exposed mightily.  And the idea that Ball > Trae was shown to be a fallacy.  Trae's command of the game far exceeds Balls.

I'm fairly confident Lamelo cares more about tik tok than winning games. 

[Atlantaholic]

1 hour ago, terrell said:

Gallo is like that guy at “The Y” hustling people. lol

You just don’t expect what he gives when you look at him.... 

 

He might be that guy from a distance or on tv, but stand next to him lol. 

[NBASupes]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

Cleveland is a different monster, but they are not sneaking up on people anymore. 

Garland, Love, and Mobley are a very dangerous three headed monster.   All of them can shoot.  They will be at home.  It's going to take a better game than we played against Charlotte to beat them.   The defense has to be as good.  The offense has to be steady.   On the road vs. Brooklyn, they showed no quit. They turned a blow out into a game.  And that was on the road.  We have to have that playoff intensity and feed off the energy.   This is another one and done.  

Overrating Cleveland. Garland and Mobley are clearly a factor we have to account for and Love is one of the best 6th man in the NBA. But overall, they haven't been playing good Basketball of late and the lost of Allen has been significant for them. Since his injury, they been more like a WC late playin team instead of a legit playoff team. 

I expect Atlanta to control this game and get the W. Cleveland has too many exposable areas. When playoff Trae is here, Atlanta hardly have any. Its unfair for Cleveland. Atlanta shouldn't be a playin team and Charlotte is clearly better of late. 

[lethalweapon3]

NSFW unless W is a nuclear submarine!

Hornets Pack don't quite hit the same but here we go.

~lw3

[NBASupes]

2 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

NSFW unless W is a nuclear submarine!

Hornets Pack don't quite hit the same but here we go.

~lw3

The Hornets definitely made improvements and yes, they are mid grade but they weren't even that the year before. 

[Spud2nique]

1 minute ago, lethalweapon3 said:

NSFW unless W is a nuclear submarine!

Hornets Pack don't quite hit the same but here we go.

~lw3

I listened to about 2 min. He should give the Hornets pregame speech for opening night! 
 

YA’LL LOSERS NOW LETS GO! 
 

[lethalweapon3]

Just made it through, and now I want my 30 minutes back. Not every NBA team's fans should be doing this.

MEANWHILE... LaMelo understands, you gotta Puff-Puff before you Pass! 

https://sideaction.com/nba/lamelo-ball-caught-smoking-a-blunt-in-4k-ahead-of-hornets-play-in-game/

~lw3

[macdaddy]

Talent usually wins in the playoffs postseason, and we have a lot more than Charlotte.   They did really well this season though.  

[marco102]

46 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Overrating Cleveland. Garland and Mobley are clearly a factor we have to account for and Love is one of the best 6th man in the NBA. But overall, they haven't been playing good Basketball of late and the lost of Allen has been significant for them. Since his injury, they been more like a WC late playin team instead of a legit playoff team. 

I expect Atlanta to control this game and get the W. Cleveland has too many exposable areas. When playoff Trae is here, Atlanta hardly have any. Its unfair for Cleveland. Atlanta shouldn't be a playin team and Charlotte is clearly better of late. 

Don't set yourself up for disappointment like this and make a thread wanting to trade everyone if they lose.  The team has shown one thing this season.  They are inconsistent.  Bake that into your expectations.  

[swanlee]

Wonder if this Hawks team is like the Reverse ATL team, we screw up in the regular season  then go lights out in the playoffs while other ATL team do well in the regular season and tend to choke in the spotlight.

Would be an interesting change of pace anyway to typical ATL sports, the Braves seem to be the only outlier at times.