Atlanta Hawks at Pistons: Handling biz against bad teams
Auburn Hills, Mich.–The Pistons are bad. Historically bad. Blowing-a-25-point-lead-to-the-Raptors-at-home-bad. So bad that Magic called them out when he was back in East Lansing the other day:
As for the current Pistons, Johnson said they were a long way from the teams he faced in consecutive NBA Finals in the late 1980s.
“Too many individuals,” Johnson said. “You have to get back to what made them great, and that’s defense and rebounding. … What we see now is a team that’s soft. People from Detroit and Michigan can accept losing, but not the way they’re losing.”
The Hawks should win this game and the temptation is to say it won’t tell us anything about them. But the thing the Hawks almost always do win this kind of game. Their troubles against the good teams have been well documented, and they have to start winning more games like Thursday in Boston to be considered legit contenders in the East. But until the Hawks figure that part out, there’s something to be said for handling their business against the league’s also-rans.
The Hawks have 12 Ws and just there Ls against teams that currently have losing records: Milwaukee, New Jersey and Phoenix. Of those teams, the Nets are the only squad with no real hope of turning things around.
So chances are the Hawks will handle Detroit tonight, then move on to the next one. That won’t earn accolades but neither should it be completely discounted.
Michael Cunningham
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328 comments Add your comment
Sautee
December 14th, 2010
9:48 pm
Too many minutes for Josh and Al. You can see it in their legs.
And too many for Jamal, playing like he is.
JeJe
December 14th, 2010
9:48 pm
PEOPLE ONLY TALK ABOUT JAMAL HAVING A ROUGH NIGHT
WHEN IS MARVIN EVER CALLED OUT BY THE ANNOUNCERS ETC FOR HIS PATHETIC 4 POINT EFFORTS?
JeJe
December 14th, 2010
9:49 pm
IT’S ALWAYS “JOSH HAD A BAD NIGHT” OR “JAMAL REALLY STRUGGLED WITH HIS SHOT.”
WHEN IS OUR #2 OVERALL STARTING SF EVER CALLED OUT FOR PLAYING LIKE !@#$
YoDaddy
December 14th, 2010
9:50 pm
TMac had a flashback
{MAC-Town Georgia 478}
December 14th, 2010
9:50 pm
lmao FIRE DOMINIQUE WILKINS
“This seems like that game against the Spurs where the Hawks played great up until that 4th quarter”
anybody else catch those good 3 quarters of bball tonight??
O'Brien
December 14th, 2010
9:50 pm
hawks outscored 33-13 in the fourth. Wow.
Sautee
December 14th, 2010
9:50 pm
Rick Sund,
How you liking that core tonight?
Jae Evolution
December 14th, 2010
9:51 pm
Yep after seeing T-Mac hit that from deep the Hawks never even made a statement tonight, Never led, never had ANY heart. Sorry bunch of ballplayers tonight, I do give props to Damien he showed good determination.
JeJe
December 14th, 2010
9:51 pm
GREAT NOW WE HAVE TO GO TO THE ROUGHEST ARENA IN THE LEAGUE TO PLAY BOSTON THEN RUSH BACK HOME THE NEXT DAY TO PLAY A CHARLOTTE TEAM THAT ALWAYS GIVES US TROUBLE
GOOD JOB SUND
GOOD JOB NBA SCHEDULERS
GOOD JOB MARVIN (OH WAIT U DONT CARE)
Jamal
December 14th, 2010
9:51 pm
I’m sick of watching this. The Hawks should do Al a favor and trade him to a real team. He shouldn’t have to put up with this garbage. If the team knew how to actually use their best player and his teammates could play under control, we wouldn’t have these monumental collapses. This is disgusting to watch and most of the time, it’s the same problems over and over.
lewis
December 14th, 2010
9:52 pm
depressing
ATL FAN
December 14th, 2010
9:52 pm
This is just embarassing… and its not because the pistons are on fire… the hawks gave up, its a disgrace
SteveW
December 14th, 2010
9:52 pm
Najeh – you are so right. We could have had Shaq, T-Mac, Dampier, all basically vet minimum guys. But we have to go with what we’ve got, which may not be a whole lot. Man, I get excited about this team, and then this!
And I compiment LD, then no Teague (basically). Is Teague really that bad?
JeJe
December 14th, 2010
9:52 pm
We pretty much had 2.5 players show up tonight
Smoove, horford, and 0.5 of Bibby
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
9:53 pm
Let me guess… after this game, there will be about 5,000 posts calling for everyone on this team to be traded, Ken Strickland will make a post about how all the other good teams have lost to bad teams so we should quit complaining, Samuel will show up and say that it’s all karma for firing Woody, and Rod will use the opportunity to remind us all how much Marvin sucks.
Sautee
December 14th, 2010
9:53 pm
LOL @ ‘Nique: “Al Horford has came and did his job tonight”
Geez
JeJe
December 14th, 2010
9:53 pm
HORFORD HAD 17 TONIGHT? DOESN’T FEEL LIKE IT
Sautee
December 14th, 2010
9:54 pm
Najeh,
How could you guess?
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
9:54 pm
“THEN RUSH BACK HOME THE NEXT DAY TO PLAY A CHARLOTTE TEAM THAT ALWAYS GIVES US TROUBLE”
If Charlotte gives a team trouble, they are not good enough to get respect from the NBA schedulers.
SteveW
December 14th, 2010
9:54 pm
Bench had about 8 or 10 pts. last I checked…
Samuel
December 14th, 2010
9:55 pm
Teague padding his stats in garbage time. LOL!!
Rod from College Park
December 14th, 2010
9:55 pm
Yeah I remember that argument Najeh. Many of the regular posters said Marvin was better than T-Mac. If T-Mac played on our team, and got the open looks Marvin gets, he would average close to 20ppg.
Ken Strickland,
This is why we don’t give Marvin credit when he has a good game. We all know that he will revert back to Marvin and disappear.
Rev in Tampa
December 14th, 2010
9:55 pm
Charlie V is one ugly dude
Randiferous
December 14th, 2010
9:56 pm
JeJe, I don’t know you can even say that Smoove showed up tonight. He may have racked up some points (on 8-17 shooting), but he made just as many mistakes, if not more mistakes, than he did positive things. He took a lot of bad shots, didn’t rotate properly, and rushed things too many times, trying to be a hero. I didn’t like what i saw from Josh tonight. Bibby was OK. He made some bad passes down the stretch, but he at least hit his open shots. I can’t really blame him for the foul trouble, since L.D. basically set him up for failure with the matchups. The only positive I see from this game was Horford’s performance. He was pretty solid on both ends and rebounded the ball very well.
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
9:56 pm
The rest of the Hawks other than Bibby, Smoove, and Al had 23 points COMBINED. Not the bench; the rest of the entire team.
ATL FAN
December 14th, 2010
9:57 pm
lmao rev
Rod from College Park
December 14th, 2010
9:58 pm
JeJe,
“PEOPLE ONLY TALK ABOUT JAMAL HAVING A ROUGH NIGHT
WHEN IS MARVIN EVER CALLED OUT BY THE ANNOUNCERS ETC FOR HIS PATHETIC 4 POINT EFFORTS?”
It really is amazing isn’t it.
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
9:58 pm
I mean seriously, considering how much the Hawks use a big lineup now, if the Hawks’ only two small forwards were Damien Wilkins (defense) and T-Mac (offense), I think they would be just fine. Let T-Mac play his 20 minutes or so to give an offensive spark when necessary, and let Damien play his 20 minutes or so to give a defensive spark when necessary. A team with as much talent and scoring at other positions as the Hawks have really only need solid role players at SF. And T-Mac showed more in this game than Marvin has shown in his entire career.
ATL FAN
December 14th, 2010
9:59 pm
Hate to break it to you, but we dont have a bench… Crawford doesnt count as bench because he plays more than some starters
Melvin
December 14th, 2010
10:00 pm
Rod,
OB and I suggested signing TMac this summer. I remember some was against it. Well, he did us in tonight…
Ray
December 14th, 2010
10:00 pm
What an embarrassment. We’ll probably be at the bottom of the power rankings now, but then again, who outside of Atlanta would really care? We get almost no respect as it is, and with games like this, it’s pretty tough to argue that we deserve any.
Rev in Tampa
December 14th, 2010
10:01 pm
Did the Hawks have any fastbreak points. This aspect of their game seemed as invisible as Marvin.
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
10:01 pm
“WHEN IS MARVIN EVER CALLED OUT BY THE ANNOUNCERS ETC FOR HIS PATHETIC 4 POINT EFFORTS?”
Well… when is anyone ever called out by the announcers when they give a pathetic effort? Have Bob and Nique ever made a negative comment about the Hawks?
Ramon
December 14th, 2010
10:02 pm
Sorry to say, part of this lost is on the head of LD. In the fourth quarter, LD let Powell stay in the game too long. Powell played for 7-8 straight minutes in the 4th, and he had a +/- of -12 at that point. CharlieV abused Powell. And when Josh would try to help out on defense, it would leave McGrady wide open. Believe it or not, LD waited too long to bring Marvin back in the game.
Also, the reason why the ball went to Josh more than Al late in the game was Al was gassed! Al played the entire 3rd quarter, and majority of the 4th quarter (until LD put the bench in with 3 minutes left). Josh was actually fouled on two of those plays, but didn’t get the call. So if only 2 players are having good nights, and one of them don’t have any more energy because his legs are gone. Who is left to go to besides Josh?? Josh still shot 46% from the field, and only had 2 turnovers.
Also, I love Wilkins attitude, but he has to start being more selfish. He’s over passing and not being aggressive. He should’ve had at least 15 points tonight, but he will bypass wide open attempts/lanes to pass it to someone covered for a harder attempt.
Jae Evolution
December 14th, 2010
10:02 pm
On another note has anyone seen the Magic Jerseys? They look really nice in my opinion.
lewis
December 14th, 2010
10:02 pm
to their credit, detroit does have a lot of guys that are supposed to be good and on the extremely rare occasion they all show up they are surprisingly hard to stop
stuckey would start at pg on the hawks
Rod from College Park
December 14th, 2010
10:03 pm
Melvin,
Yeah, I was one who said that we should sign him also, and many told me I was crazy.
Rev in Tampa
December 14th, 2010
10:05 pm
Ramon, I agree with your analysis. Maybe Al should have got those two fouls he normally gets in the first quarter.
Najeh Davenpoop
December 14th, 2010
10:05 pm
I will say this — every team does have games in every season that they lose to inferior teams. In an 82 game season, teams are not always going to have their A game against every opponent, and every now and then a good team will get beat by a bad team because the bad team brought their A game and the good team brought their C- game. It happens.
With that said, even when good teams bring their C- game and lose, they usually don’t lose to bottom five teams by 20 points. But as we have seen over the last few years, this is the kind of thing these Hawks do. Just when they start looking like they could be putting it all together, they lose a game like this to remind us how huge the gulf is between them and the legit contenders in this league.
Ray
December 14th, 2010
10:08 pm
lewis,
You’re right that stuckey would start at PG for the Hawks, but just about any PG from another team would start for the Hawks. Bibby and Teague are some of the worst PGs in the entire league. One of them is a glorified spot-up shooter and the other is a timid slasher with one of the worst jump shots in the league. Seriously, there probably isn’t even one other starting PG in the league who wouldn’t be an upgrade over what we have that position. Even Fisher in his late 30s is probably an upgrade.
Ramon
December 14th, 2010
10:08 pm
Randiferous, are you serious? Josh had bad attempts because he drove to the lane and didn’t get the call? Most of his misses were around the baskets AFTER drawing contact.You said he made more mistakes than positive plays. Yet he was the only Hawk going to the line, and he only had 2 turnovers (one that was really Mo Evans fault, after Mo drop the outlet pass). Josh was 2 for 9 around the basket in the lane. And on at least 4 of those misses he was fouls. For LD to come out on the court (LD is the hardest coach to upset from what I’ve seen), tells you Josh was being hacked all night. Also you said Josh didn’t rotate right on defense? Did you not see when Josh did rotate on defense, it left McGrady open for 3s, because the next man didn’t rotate to cover his man.
Rod from College Park
December 14th, 2010
10:08 pm
Ramon,
“Believe it or not, LD waited too long to bring Marvin back in the game.”
Dude, you need to really stop with this Marvin defensive stuff. Who’s man was Rip Hamilton, in the first half? Whose man was Matt Bonner and Jefferson in the San Antonio game.
{MAC-Town Georgia 478}
December 14th, 2010
10:09 pm
If we keep up with all of this “ahh lets just turn the page, we’ll get ‘em next time, it’s just one bad game” attitude (as if we are just so good and dont have glaring weaknesses, just fluke loses) after each one of these horrible games……we’ll find ourselves scraping just to make the playoffs
Rev in Tampa
December 14th, 2010
10:09 pm
Rod from College Park,
Maybe the fact that we were calling you crazy was unrelated to signing T-Mac. I grew up in Palmetto and we thought everybody in College Park was gun-toting crazy.
No disrespect, just funnin’ with you
ATL FAN
December 14th, 2010
10:10 pm
Najeh,
This wasn’t the first time this happened tho
superiorblogman
December 14th, 2010
10:12 pm
Really bad coaching job nothing more or less, Jeff Teague was the one guy that might could have changed the tempo and he did not get a adequate chance
Melvin
December 14th, 2010
10:12 pm
Bad lost but it’s time to focus on the Celtics… It would have been too win tonight b/c the Magic may lose to the Nuggets tonight…
Melvin
December 14th, 2010
10:13 pm
Bad lost but it’s time to focus on the Celtics… It would have been nice to win b/c the Magic may lose to the Nuggets tonight…
{MAC-Town Georgia 478}
December 14th, 2010
10:14 pm
Drew = soft
Ramon
December 14th, 2010
10:14 pm
Also, there is no reason for Mo Evans to be getting this much time, and JC2 can’t even get in uniform to get in the game. The way Mo Evans is playing, I don’t want to see him in the game until after Joe comes back from his injury. In the last 6 games, Mo is averaging more fouls (1.8 a game) than he is points, rebounds, assists, or steals. And that is as a starter! For the season the man is shooting 32%! How are you shooting 32% from the field, and still get the chance to start? JC2 is shooting a higher percentage from beyond the arc, than Mo is shooting from the field. Mo better practice his Spanish, Greek, or Italian, because playing like this, he’s going to have to get a passport for his next contract.