Six in a row
Greetings, all-
Hope you got to enjoy Friday night’s game. Wow. That stretch in the third quarter, I think it was one of those times where you didn’t really have to be a Hawks fan to appreciate what was going on. You just had to be a fan of the game, period. It was just five guys losing themselves in the flow of the game, totally committed and executing at a near flawless rate.
This is probably a stretch, and please don’t take this to mean I’m saying the Hawks are as good as the Michael Jordan Bulls, but I grew up watching that team and, particularly when they had Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen teamed up with Jordan – I remember assistant coach Johnny Bach called them Doberman pinschers – that team could turn it on defensively like nothing else.
The Hawks looked something like that against Utah in the third quarter. Josh Smith was unreal rebounding, blocking and altering shots and even that behind-the-back bounce pass to Al Horford on the break. Passes got deflected, Jazz cutters were covered, Joe Johnson swallowed up Deron Williams. That Ray Lewis comparison that Jamal Crawford made with Smith looks a little less lopsided today than Friday.
The crazy thing is how it followed a pretty rancid first half. If you remember, Horford tried to start a break by throwing the ball backwards over his head. Mike Bibby’s layup. A couple wild outlet passes by Smith. Typically level-headed Mo Evans turning to yell at a ref while the ball was still in play.
Watching all this, it certainly seemed like the Hawks were off their game and were headed to a loss, just because no team can keep up the kind of mojo they’ve been having (to wit: Boston against Philly. Did you know the Celtics are 3-4 on Fridays, including the Hawks’ win over them last month? They’re 17-1 the other six days of the week. Strange.)
But, heavens, what a turnaround. You’d have to think the Hawks will win again tonight. I’d hardly call it a sure thing, though, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if they lost. It seems to happen enough in the NBA. But it makes me wonder how long they can keep playing like this and what it’ll take to stop them. Denver looms large, obviously – second game of a back to back at altitude, for whatever that’s worth. And then Cleveland, certainly.
But, anyway, I am on the flight to Chicago and am going to have to shut down the laptop pretty soon. So, some links, and I think that’ll do it.
Enjoy the game tonight.
The Salt Lake Tribune’s take.
“I think more than anything their length just hurt us,” Deron Williams said. “They switched everything. We didn’t really have an answer for that. We didn’t have a game plan against that. They played great basketball tonight.”
The Jazz lost the third quarter 37-17, giving up a 16-0 run in which they were held scoreless for 5:13 and suffered a complete meltdown.
From Jazz beat writer Ross Siler’s blog:
The funniest thing in there is that Deron Williams left about 40 tickets for the University of Illinois basketball team (where Williams played) because they’re in Atlanta playing Georgia at Gwinnett Arena, I think. Because of traffic delays, the team got there in the third quarter. Bummer.
Carlos Boozer quotes:
“They’re one of the fastest teams in the league at every position and they exploited that tonight. They played fast with layups and dunks and transition. They just kicked our butts in general.”
“It’s almost like we played right into their hands. Whatever their scheme was worked.”
The Chicago Tribune’s Bulls page.
The nuttiest stat I’ve seen today, from espn.com’s Daily Dime courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau.
The irrepressible Elias Sports Bureau might have outdone itself with this one involving Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Cleveland’s two centers produced near-identical lines in the box score in Tuesday’s win over New Jersey: Both scored 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting with five rebounds and three blocked shots. How hard is it to produce a line with those specifics? Elias says that players have recorded more than 750,000 box-score lines since the NBA began keeping track of blocks in 1973 … and only two other players in all that time went for 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting with five boards and three swats: Cavs swingman Jamario Moon in April 2008 (with Toronto), and Portland’s Greg Oden earlier this season.
A page I’ve now bookmarked, because Elias Sports Bureau does a great job of digging up stuff like this – plus stuff that has more meaning, is Elias Says.
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319 comments Add your comment
Blast
December 19th, 2009
10:46 pm
Ahhh…… Hawks lost!
hock
December 19th, 2009
10:46 pm
What a crappy effort. These guys better stop reading their press clippings.
BONE
December 19th, 2009
10:46 pm
Jordan passed ot to Kerr to win the finals big dave. you gotta trust your teammates
niremetal
December 19th, 2009
10:47 pm
Joe had the look he wanted on the next-to-last play. Just didn’t convert.
bigdave
December 19th, 2009
10:47 pm
damn good battle…
Melvin
December 19th, 2009
10:47 pm
Another loss to a subpar team…..dang it…
a-jax
December 19th, 2009
10:47 pm
Bulls deserve it, they wanted it more. Hawks slept through the 2nd half and OT, and that includes their coach.
bigdave
December 19th, 2009
10:47 pm
Bone…
he had a layup…
rimmed out…
Sautee
December 19th, 2009
10:48 pm
Live by the ISO……
jean
December 19th, 2009
10:48 pm
marvin williams is garbage…joe is a selfish pice of sh”t woody is dumb for not leaving crawford in
Rod from College Park
December 19th, 2009
10:48 pm
bigdave,
Because Joe has never shown he is a clutch player besides maybe one game in the Boston series. I would rather Bibby or Jamal take the last shot. Just my opinion.
J.J.M.
December 19th, 2009
10:49 pm
smh no faith in the other players
mark
December 19th, 2009
10:49 pm
Joe is an allstar, not a SUPERSTAR. He chokes time and time again.
hock
December 19th, 2009
10:49 pm
Great teams don’t lose this game. But great teams don’t have a stiff like Marvin starting for them. They need help at forward big time.
Kiki
December 19th, 2009
10:49 pm
JJ scored 40 pts, and missed the one that mattered the most.
bigdave
December 19th, 2009
10:50 pm
thats what i dont understand… we ran nothing late in the 4th… just 1on1 from everyone…
we have to call something and execute half court late in games other than iso’s or it will bite us come playoff times…
mark
December 19th, 2009
10:50 pm
I know Crawford can hit big shots, not Joe!
Rod from College Park
December 19th, 2009
10:50 pm
The end of the game should never include Marvin Williams offensively. Jamal should always be on the floor to take the defensive pressure off of Joe.
buick59
December 19th, 2009
10:50 pm
Has Joe Johnson EVER made a clutch shot at the end of a game? I sure can not remember. But they continue to give it to him, not Crawford or even Bibby. This team is a 2nd round playoff casualty. But by Atlanta standards that is considered excellent.
bigdave
December 19th, 2009
10:51 pm
if u say so Rod… dont know what evidence supports this… but he’s hit some big shots tonight when we needed buckets…
Blast
December 19th, 2009
10:52 pm
Hawks lost but I don’t feel too bad about this game. Hawks were bound to lose sometime. Now they just have to get a win versus Minny.
Don’t think Hawks passed the ball enough tonight.
mark
December 19th, 2009
10:52 pm
Joe missed big shots late in the fourth and in overtime. Maybe we should not resign him and go after a Great player.
a-jax
December 19th, 2009
10:54 pm
Come playoffs, when you can’t just blow the other team out, you have to figure out to win and execute your plays. The Hawks don’t have any plays late in games, and that will cost them in a 2nd round series against one of the east big three. These guys remind me of the early-mid 90’s hawks. Talented but won’t get over the hump against the elite.
Kiki
December 19th, 2009
10:55 pm
A superstar do not miss under pressure. JJ is the best player in trhis team, an all-star, but NOT a clutch superstar
northcyde
December 19th, 2009
10:55 pm
JJ has hit like 12 or 13 shots that has either tied or won a game. Da hell you people talking about? Bibby should’ve taken the 3, but hesitated. Crawford has missed more game winning or game tying shots than anybody has in the last 5 years.
We can’t win them all. This was a grind it out game that we just lost.
What you guys should be complaining about, is how the Bulls outscored us 38 – 29 in the 4th quarter and in OT.
Blast
December 19th, 2009
10:56 pm
Look at it this way. Bulls needed overtime and a 3 point advantage to win this game on their own home floor.
kwooden1
December 19th, 2009
10:56 pm
Tough game, hate to lose!! Looks like the 15 assists and 3-19 by Marvin and Smoove did us in. Sound like the Bulls fought hard though, have to give them credit for not giving up down 7 with 4mins to go.
GO HAWKS!!
Wabe
December 19th, 2009
10:56 pm
Just a bad game. Don’t really make too much of it. Rebound in Minny and then redeem ourselves in Denver.
northcyde
December 19th, 2009
10:57 pm
This was through feb of last year, so these stats aren’t up to date. But they give you an idea who makes shots, and who doesn’t.
http://82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm
Blast
December 19th, 2009
10:58 pm
Funny so called Hawks fans on the blog tonight. Blaming Joe, Josh, Woody and the crowd for this loss. Posting under different screen names. Get the hellout of here!
northcyde
December 19th, 2009
11:00 pm
Crybaby fans.
A team can’t win every game. So why trash your best player on a night where he goes 16- 32 and scores 40 points . . on the road . . when everybody else basically couldn’t hit shots?
But the fans haven’t cried in a long time.
LOL. . . watch Ken Strickland come on, talking about how Woody coached differently . . lol.
kwooden1
December 19th, 2009
11:05 pm
When’s Joe Smith coming back, we can use his toughness and decision making?
bigdave
December 19th, 2009
11:07 pm
northcyde… Blast… kwooden…
cosign…
Mychelfromatl
December 19th, 2009
11:07 pm
Hmmmm…..
**Comes in to gauge reaction**
**Not surprised that the same fools are up to their usual antics**
**Leaves SMH**
kwooden1
December 19th, 2009
11:08 pm
northcyde good link. Looks like Joe and Jamal are almost exactly the same.
O'Brien
December 19th, 2009
11:08 pm
Guys, lets not carried away here. Boston lost at home last night to the Sixers. It happens.
That being said, plenty of blame to go around. When the games are close, Woody has no offensive sets. Its give the ball to JJ, and let him create. I can’t wait to see what he does in the playoffs.
Also, I dont know why Sund gave Marvin 5 years, $40 mil, because both Mo Evans and JJ get minutes at SF, and it looks like Marvin has very little impact on games. One game he had 29 pts, and another game he had 15 rebounds. Other than that, he disappears, still trying to find his aggressiveness. 4 pts, 7 rebs in 31 minutes, shooting 1-7. That money might have been better off going to Chills.
And Josh needs to stop taking those long 2’s. Its like as long as its not a 3, he thinks its okay to shoot it. He did have a great defensive play in OT that gave us a chance to win though.
And we got nothing from Bibby. He passed up an open 3 at the end of OT, waiting for JJ to be superman. Not to mention his defense sucked, which is a big reason why Rose had a career high 32 pts (and Josh wasnt there to make up for his bad defense).
Overall, a lot of us predicted this would be a loss, and we are still 19-7, which is still great. Hopefully, we can turn it aroud and start another winning streak.
Blast
December 19th, 2009
11:09 pm
Marvin and Josh makes one extra bucket each and Hawks would have won this game.
a-jax
December 19th, 2009
11:11 pm
Hey, it blows because you can see it coming from a mile away. 2nd round and out. They may not get swept like last year but they are winning mostly on talent. This a game that an elite team puts away when they lead by 7 in the fourth. I give the Bulls credit, but if the Hawks want to be elite, they can’t blow these games.
Grandad
December 19th, 2009
11:11 pm
I haven’t read all the remarks but I can say this; Joe didn’t choke.
Woodson did. It’s like Ken Strickland says repeatedly “woody ball”.
No plays coming out of TO’s, no player movement or ball reversal. I’m not jumping on the guy…I just for the life of me cannot figure him out. Nique said all the starters were rested from last nite so right away I knew the bench wouldn’t see as many minutes.
When the other team knows Joe is gonna get the ball and take every shot down the stretch, don’t you reckon they can set the defense against Joe.
One last item, we must give the kid [Rose] credit for a winning performance.
I know, I know, it’s one game but all those one games have a pattern.
Use all the weapons [Jamal] at your disposal.
Joe showed up.
Josh did not play well…did he choke ??? No.
Woodson administrated the game poorly…choke ??? No. Pattern ??? Yes.
Team=loss just as Team=win streak.
Key > Team !
Kiki
December 19th, 2009
11:19 pm
Does anyone think that maybe what Marvin needs to be the player we expected is to be somewhere else? i’m getting frustrated with him; sometimes he shows flashes of quality and then fades out…
preston
December 19th, 2009
11:22 pm
Woodson has done an excellent job this year with the hawks, but this was one of his worst called games going down the stretch. It was obvious that the bulls were going to tightened up on Joe, just as we tightened up on Rose, but for whatever reasons plays were constantly being called for Joe, and nothing else……and he took a lot of tough shots that didn’t fall. The Bulls, on the other hand had their shooters on the perimeter to hit open shots when Rose was being blanketed by the hawks. Why did we not employ this same theory with Crawford? There was zero reasons for your second best shooter not to be on the floor in the final minutes of the game or overtime. The hawks played great for 3/4 of the game, but when it came down to execution, this one is on Woody.
Blast
December 19th, 2009
11:25 pm
O’ Brien. 11:08 post. Cosign all the way.
preston
December 19th, 2009
11:27 pm
It kinda makes me wonder why Crawford wasnt in the game for the last few minutes of the game, and most of the overtime? What was Woodson trying to prove……..Marvin wasn’t doing anything to waarent him playing down the stretch instead of Jamaal. Whatever Woodson’s reason were, hopefully he learned, and we won’t see that again.
RLP
December 19th, 2009
11:30 pm
Missed the game tonight. This puts the record for Ken S.’s prediction at 5-1.
keno
December 19th, 2009
11:46 pm
I don’t think Joe choked. He gets a pass from me tonight since he came ready to play on offense and defense. The Hawks loss this game because the rest of the starters were sleep walking through most of the game and the bench was terrible. And Woody gets a F tonight for his coaching. I watched the game on WGN and even they knew all the plays were ISO Joe. He can’t make ‘em all.
rusty
December 19th, 2009
11:56 pm
LETS GET SERIOUS,WE WERE TREATED TO ISO JOE OFFENSE,JOE NEEDED TO
HAVE A BIG NIGHT,NEEDED TO GET HIS EGO FED LAST NIGHT IN THE INTERVIEW
YOU COULD SEE HE WASNT HAPPY NOT BEING THE BIG STAR.WHEN HE PLAYS LIKE HE DID TO NIGHT OUR OFFENSE GOES DOWN THE TOILET BOWL,THERE WAS NO BALL MOVEMENT & WOODY WOODPECKER LETS HIM PLAY LIKE THIS. I GOT TO GIVE HIM CREDIT HE WAS MAKING SHOTS AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR TEAM
UNSEFISHNESS WHICH ENABLES US TO PLAY GREAT. WOODY HAD AN AWFUL
COACHING NIGHT,EVEN IF THE HAWKS ARE WINNING HE IS A LOUSY COACH.HERES TO ALL OF OUR FANS WHO THINK JOE IS GREAT & WOODY SHOULD BE COY
Big Ump
December 19th, 2009
11:58 pm
Blast
I agree with you about these so called Hawks fan. Hawks have nothing to be ashamed about. Seem like these so called fans have 7 games they can brag about and the real fans have 19 games that we can brag about. A real fan support the team win or lose. Blast you can’t really be mad at them. Because like Billy Preston said you got to let the bad guys (Haters) win every once in a while.
Ken Sugiura
December 20th, 2009
12:06 am
a couple things – Joe Smith is not with the team, so my guess is Indiana on the 26th.
JJ said he thought the team ran out of gas. he and Al Horford both mentioned Josh Smith’s foul trouble as being a factor. I read what was posted about the Bulls scoring more efficiently when he was in the game, and that might be true. And I think the Hawks were up four when he left in the third quarter and up two when he came back, so it’s not like it was a collapse. Regardless, I’d think that had he been in in the third quarter, chances would have been good that the lead would have been extended.
I go back and forth on how much Johnson shot the ball. On the one hand, it was working. Too, he was trying to distribute. And as for him taking the last shots, I think that’s what teams with players of his caliber generally do. As has been pointed out, if one of those two shots at the end of regulation had gone in, it would have worked.
On the other hand, 32 out of 87 shots (36.8 percent) is a lot, particularly when Jamal Crawford and Horford seemed to be on their games, too.
Ken Sugiura
December 20th, 2009
12:07 am
one other thing – players were very disappointed in the locker room afterwards. i thought they would have been more accepting of it – “You have to lose at some point,” etc. – but they were pretty down, feeling like they gave it away.
Ken Sugiura
December 20th, 2009
12:31 am
If you’re interested, and awake, game story with quotes should be up soon online.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-hawks/hawks-streak-ends-at-248250.html