Magic-Hawks
Happy Thanksgiving, all-
I hope you all have had joyful times of sharing with family and friends today before settling into some Hawks basketball. (and thanks, Honest Abe, for the kind words about the story. And, while I’m on that topic, thanks to all of you all for making me feel welcome in your space and for all of your encouragement. It’s made this a lot of fun.)
7:10 p.m. Mike Bibby will go. He tested out his ankle at shootaround and evidently feels good enough to go. He said he can go as long as necessary.
“I wouldn’t be dressing if I couldn’t,” he said.
Also, he and Joe Johnson have all-red Jordans, and it looks like those wearing headbands (Bibby, Josh Smith, Teague) are going red.
Also, Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said he told Dwight Howard to be more aggressive with the ball. Remarkable stat — In the last five games, Howard’s shot totals – 5, 7, 4, 13, 5). He averaged 12.4 shots per game last year and 11.9 a year before that.
The Hawks’ PR staff says Mike Bibby is a game-time decision. He participated in the shootaround, which leads me to think he’ll play some, but perhaps his minutes might be limited.
One thing worth noting – Magic point guard Jason Williams played 39 minutes on his 34-year-old legs last night, three days after playing 39, so he might not have so much in his tank, either.
Got a tight deadline tonight, so don’t know how much I’ll be able to participate on the blog, but I’ll do my best.
Some links: a pre-game scouting report from the Orlando Sentinel
Some more national love: Yahoo! sports weighs in
An NESN.com (New England sports cable network) story on the Hawks.
Hope you’ve all had a Happy Thanksgiving. Let’s see what happens tonight…
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307 comments Add your comment
a-jax
November 26th, 2009
10:36 pm
Not a die-hard fan. I thought I’d watch tonight because they’ve started strong and the magic are a good team. This team is not ready, and Woody is not a big-time coach. The hawks will out-talent most of the league. This team should be a contender with the people on the floor, but Woody is terrible, they will never sniff a title with him on the bench. If SVG can out-coach him, how can he ever win a title?
niremetal
November 26th, 2009
10:36 pm
Wow…Zaza had no one within 5 feet of him and Jamal looked right through him.
The Hawksta
November 26th, 2009
10:37 pm
What a fking meltdown!
Viper
November 26th, 2009
10:37 pm
JOSH SMITH WITH ANOTHER DUMB JUMPSHOT
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mike N.
November 26th, 2009
10:37 pm
Now Teague is checking in with a minute left…way to develop another guard woody
The Hawksta
November 26th, 2009
10:38 pm
AJ with 15 in the forth quarter!
Samuel
November 26th, 2009
10:38 pm
The Magic clamped down and played great defense in the second half but we missed a lot of wide open jumpers too. They score 39 points in the first half and we’ve scored 22 in the second half.
Anthony Johnson was the difference in the game tonight. The Magic showed that they will be a team to reckon with when it’s all said and done. They are who we though they were.
vava74
November 26th, 2009
10:38 pm
I’m gone! See ya!
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:38 pm
I guess we’ll wait for the post game interviews. Uh, I guess Woody will say that we didn’t rebound and defend enough, and Joe will say that we didn’t know our roles. LOL….if it wasn’t so sad.
bigdave
November 26th, 2009
10:39 pm
honestly Crawford played like crap on both ends of the floor… Reddick was eating him up…
might be one of the most dissapointing loses ive witnessed… ugly.. bitter…
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:39 pm
Stop blaiming the refs.
We missed shot after shot. We took awful outside shots.
We lost this game
STFU with this ref blaiming.
Wabe
November 26th, 2009
10:39 pm
2nd half – we saw the Hawks of old…
Nothing but iso’s.
No ball movement.
No transition buckets.
Didn’t see any Teague or Joe Smith in the 2nd half.
bigdave
November 26th, 2009
10:39 pm
goodnight..
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:39 pm
EXPLOIT THE MATCHUP. NO ONE CAN COVER JCRAW. SO DONT LET JJ POUND IT
Wabe
November 26th, 2009
10:40 pm
Can’t believe this one.
Truly embarrassing.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:41 pm
I don’t know, Samuel .
The Magic played decent defense, but we were also cold, and got into all the bad habits that give us scoring problems.
And I’m not normally a whiner about the calls, but there were some BS calls that really hurt us.
The score isn’t even really indicative of what happened. We just about gave them that game after beating the brakes off of them in the first half.
They made their adjustments. We did not. That about sums it up.
a-jax
November 26th, 2009
10:41 pm
Every team in this state should have an alternate uniform burning. Red sunday jerseys, red ATL jerseys, blackout jerseys. Only the falcons throwbacks get to live.
Viper
November 26th, 2009
10:41 pm
AND THE HAWKS WHO WERE JUST GETTING LEAGUE WIDE BUZZ HAVE BEEN EXPOSED ONCE AGAIN AS FRAUDS WHO CAN’T PLAY WITH THE BIG BOYS.
vava74
November 26th, 2009
10:42 pm
Look at the boxscore and the number of FT by each team and draw your conclusions…
JJ should have gone to the line at least 3 times during the second quarter, that alone would have clamped down the bleeding…
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:42 pm
GREAT GAME, MARVIN! YOU ARE SURE EARNING YOUR PAYCHECK! 1 POINT FOR EVERY 1 MILLION U MAKE IN A YEAR! U ARE AN ABSOLUTELY USELESS PEICE OF GARBAGE. GETTING OWNED BY JJ REDICK (DUKE! LMAO)
WORTHLESS SCUM
GET OFF OF MY BASKETBALL TEAM
Blast
November 26th, 2009
10:43 pm
Hawks got beat, punked, and shamed before a national audience. Not hating on the team, just disappointed at the effort.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:43 pm
JeJe ,
You don’t like what you see, scroll on. I saw some bad calls out there. No, they aren’t the reason we lost, but there were some bad calls, and they didn’t HELP AT ALL. If you couldn’t see that, then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m going to call it like I see it. So will anybody else. You can take that STFU stuff elsewhere….
Justin
November 26th, 2009
10:44 pm
I’m thankful this game is over. I’ve never seen a worse half of offense in professional basketball than the 2nd half of this game. A real disappointment after an inspired first half. I thought that we had finally arrived to the point of going toe to toe with Orlando, but getting outscored by 29 in one half on your home floor in a big game like this is just disappointing. The shot selection in the second half was awful. And it did seem like every ball bounced Orlando’s way. Still, was hoping for more than what I saw in the second half.
Jody
November 26th, 2009
10:44 pm
Sorry folks. Yes the officiating was less than desirable, but the Hawks were severly outcoached and the effort from a lot (not all) of the players was sorely lacking.
Justin
November 26th, 2009
10:45 pm
The Magic are the team the Hawks have the most trouble with in the East.
buick59
November 26th, 2009
10:45 pm
now those are the Hawks we all know and love. Always pretenders, NEVER champions. Lazy, unmotivated team. Joe Johnson is NO clutch player, Bibby a washed-up has-been, Josh Smith a hot dog. On the other hand, the Magic will be a championship team. Just like the Falcons, Braves, etc, etc. always pretenders.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:45 pm
Let’s see, Reddick outscored Marvin 9 to 7. Yeah, he got “owned”….
…..Wow….
Tim
November 26th, 2009
10:45 pm
$hitty effort from the hawks. ajc staff were ready to crown them nba champs? gmafb.
J williams
November 26th, 2009
10:47 pm
The Magic outscored the Hawks 54 to 25 in the 2nd half. Whatever the coaches said at halftime, they should never ever say again.
It does not work!
Hawks Fan In New Orleans
November 26th, 2009
10:47 pm
Disgusted at a game we should have won – oh well – time to hit the treadmill to make a dent in the calories I gained.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:47 pm
Wow. I didn’t know we were playing for the NBA championship tonight. Here I was thinking it was the 15th game of the season. Man, there are so many DINGS going on here tonight….sheesh, I’m out y’all.
Good luck with the fake Hawks fans, the visiting Orlando fans (yeah, they’re obvious, aren’t they?) , and the usual squabbling. Time to go into the post-Thanksgiving dinner coma….
Peace…
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:48 pm
SHUT UP RAY. U ARE CLUELESS. LOL @ U BLAMING REFS.
DID U WATCH THE GAME? WE DIDN’T HIT SH!T IN 2ND HALF AND HAD TERRIBLE SHOT SELECTINO
DWIGHT GOT NO CALLS AT ALL ON THE OFFENSIVE END 75 % OF THE TIME. BUT I FORGOT: U ARE THE EXPERT HERE. PROBABLY THE NEXT BEAT WRITER AFTER KEN’S INTERIM PERIOD IS OVER
Viper
November 26th, 2009
10:48 pm
LOL @ the clown Big Ray defending his boyfriend Marvin the Duck
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:48 pm
Hawks Fan in New Orleans ,
You’re a better man than me. I’m not going anywhere NEAR my treadmill right now. If I do, I might puke, LOL….
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:50 pm
DWIGHT SHOULD HAVE SHOT ABOTU 20 MORE FTS.
WHO THE HELL COMPLAISN ABOUT THE REFS IN A GAME LIKE THIS?
TAKE AWAY VINCE AND RASHARD AND WE STILL LOSE THIS GAME
TEH MAGIC ARE SO INCREDIBLY SUPERIOR TO US IN EVERY FACET. THEY HAVE SO MUCH DEPTH AND TALENT THAT THEY HAVEN’T EVEN CLICKED YET.
RYAN ANDERSON, PIETRUS, J.WILL, BARNES, AND GORTAT, COULD PROBABLY BEAT OUR STARTERS IN A 20 MINUTE GAME
Jody
November 26th, 2009
10:50 pm
I don’t think the Hawks were playing for the championship, but this was definitely a statement game on national t.v. The effort has got to be better in these situations. No excuses.
doc
November 26th, 2009
10:51 pm
beat down, plain and simple. will we go .500 the rest of the year, like last year after a huge quick start or continue to rise? stay tuned. i imagine if we end up ten games over 500 that will not appease folks too much. last year we started at 6 games over and finished the rest of the season including playoffs at one game under 500.
first time to lose two in a row, this one after several days off to a team that played and lost last night and had to travel in and won in the half we should have done them in and pulled away. sorry just not good.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:52 pm
JeJe ,
Here, let me help you out. This is what I posted at 10:41 p.m.
The Magic played decent defense, but we were also cold, and got into all the bad habits that give us scoring problems.
And I’m not normally a whiner about the calls, but there were some BS calls that really hurt us.
The score isn’t even really indicative of what happened. We just about gave them that game after beating the brakes off of them in the first half.
They made their adjustments. We did not. That about sums it up.
Yeah, I totally blamed this one on the refs….completely…utterly….solely….Yep, the whole statement was that the refs were why we lost.
welikebaseball2
November 26th, 2009
10:53 pm
I’m curious to know the Hawks assist differential between the 1st & 2nd halves. Definitely looked like last year’s offense all over again. Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, pass, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, last-second jumpshot…back to the other end of the floor. How can you NOT put the lack of offensive structure on Woodson?
Jody
November 26th, 2009
10:53 pm
Doc,
I agree wholeheartedly.
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:53 pm
NOT ONCE DO THE HAWKS EVER UTILIZE CRAWFORD’S MISMATCHES. ALL WE GET FROM HIM IS CONTESTED 3′S. RUN PLAYS FOR THE GUY. HE FREAKING DROPPED 55 ON DWYANE WADE. HE CAN OBVIOUSLY PLAY
WASTE OF MONEY
November 26th, 2009
10:53 pm
I dont belive what I just saw. Up by 15 lose by almost 20 WTF?????? Anthony Johnson ???????? WTF????? Couldnt anybody smack his OLD azz around??? Mario West would have whooped his old azz. Do the Hawks still owe him money???? The Hawks miss like 35 shots in the second half?????? WTF??? F-I-V-E days rest and you lay an egg like this on TURKEY DAY on NATIONAL TV?????
Yeah IM PISSED!!!@$$^&*&*^#$@#$@@!##@%% HAWKSSSSSS. Mannnnnn. UGGHHHHHH!!!
Tim
November 26th, 2009
10:54 pm
Get a center, or get killed by Orlando every time we play them. Hawks were intimidated when Howard took over in second half. Hawks scored less than 30 points in second half. No shooters. No answer for Howard. They gave up at end of 3rd quarter. Lot of games to go, but this was a major disappointment. Way too much hype over this team. Haven’t proven anything at this point. 2nd tier at best at this point. AJC is dying to declare a winner in this town. Unfortunately, there isn’t one. At least not yet.
kwooden1
November 26th, 2009
10:54 pm
This is a good lesson for the HAWKS. Orlando came out in the second half and started getting stops. Our offensive became totally perimeter! Horford took 3 SHOTS! I REPEAT HORFORD TOOK 3 SHOTS!!! If you want to get Howard out of the paint you have to attack him!! You have to get Horford the ball and make Howard guard him. This game falls on JJ first, Bibby second and Woodson 3rd. Everyone follows JJ on the offensive end. If he’s passing the ball then everyone else will pass the ball. Bibby has to get the ball to Horford. No one else on the team runs the point like Bibby, so he’s the one who has to do it. Woodson has to get the guys to understand this! The HAWKS can play inside out, for stretches when needed, even though their best in the open court.
Orlando showed some really pride in the 3rd quarter. Howard even said it during the exit interview, “We weren’t going to get embarrassed tonight!” (The way Charlotte embarrassed them!)
The solution appears obvious to me! When the game slows down, let Horford/Smoove initiate the offensive. If you get stops push the ball!
GO HAWKS!!!
doc
November 26th, 2009
10:55 pm
my bad, before someone else jumps in, when i reread my post i saw my error. correct it to we were three games over .500 the rest of the way after our start of 6 straight.
Big Ray
November 26th, 2009
10:56 pm
“TAKE AWAY VINCE AND RASHARD AND WE STILL LOSE THIS GAME”
Let’s see, Vince scored 21 and Rashard scored 14. That’s a total of 35 points. So let’s subtract 35 from 93 and what do we get? 58.
I seem to recall that we scored 76 points, so if you take away Rashard and Vince, we win 76 to 58….
DING….
DING….
DING….
DING….
DING….
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:57 pm
LOL RAY.
I DIDNT SAY U BLAMED IT ENTIRELY ON THE REFS. BUT EVEN MENTIONING THE REFS HERE IS COMPLETELY BS.
THE REFS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH WHY WE LOST. DWIGHT HOWARD GOT NO CALLS
.
YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SAID “How the devil do you get home-team calls….AWAY FROM HOME????”
GOOD JOB.
HEY WHY ISN’T YOUR WRITIGN IN GRAY? I THOUGHT U GET OFF TO SEEING YOUR WRITING DIFFERENT TO THE REST OF US LOSERS
JeJe
November 26th, 2009
10:57 pm
ANNOUNCERS DID A FREAKING HORRENDOUS JOB TONIGHT.
CALLING FOULS ON JJ WHEN THEY WERE ON VINCE. THE TITO HORFORD REFERENCE.
ILL-logical
November 26th, 2009
10:58 pm
The good news is that this was an early season game and there is a lesson learned or teachable moment here: Move the ball and share it we win; iso Joe and we lose.
Josh and Al were cleaning up on the boards in the first half and josh was scoring inside then came the third quarter and Jump shot after jump shot after jump shot spelled the end. No attempt to get Howard in foul trouble or getting the Magic into the penalty. Woodson said that he was going stop the team from reverting to a jumps shot offense in his interview starting the second half then proceeded to go iso Joe for the 3rd quarter. And Joe couldn’t carry the team on his back and he couldn’t have been tired.
This one’s over let’s move on to the next one.
richbrave
November 26th, 2009
10:58 pm
DAMM, I finally get to see my new team and then miss all but a few minutes of the third and the fourth. BIBBY is still easy to take on dribble penetration. My goodness, a thirty-five year old guard (JOHNSON) broke him down with ease. And his stroke was off tonight as well.
Too many iso dribble drives and dribbling in general on offense by JOE JOHNSON and others. CRAWFORD couldn’t throw it in the ocean while I was watching. The passing was insufficient and hesitatingly slow the entire time I watched, like people were thinking should I shoot or pass first?
At times I was reminded of WIZARDS play. And believe me, I know sorry NBA style basketball when I see it. Not a well played game. Not too bad on defense. BIBBY’s was the only glaring errors I noted. I guess because I have such a hard-on against the guy. I know there were a few others.
One guy from ORLANDO muscled up to shoot a three while alone, then thought better of it and decided to pass, but no one popped open so he took the shot and missed. The point being, no HAWK broke to cover him after he was alone in the corner. In any event sorry they lost. Go get ‘um next time.