Warriors at Atlanta Hawks: Game thread

Sautee and Northcyde, I said tonight’s shot selection by Josh was terrible when he knows he’s not hitting that tonight. I said that earlier. But not only did I post Wade numbers, I also posted Bosh having similar shooting nights and he plays PF also. I’m not defending Josh’s performance TONIGHT by any means. Go and look at my earlier post on page 10. But I am saying you can’t say he has a bad night and he’s terrible on the team. Most of the people who post and say that, posts nothing when he has a great night.

And Sautee, against Chicago that night, Wade went 1 for 8 on jumpers. And Bosh had how many terrible shooting nights last season and this season where he settled for jumpers? I just brought them up to show all stars have bad shooting nights where they settle as well (and some of them are PFs, ask NYK about Amare this season), not just Josh.

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Naw, we really miss not picking CP3, Andre, and Rudy in the those previous lottery picks!

BK messed this team up for 10 years……

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People..People..People….Stop with all these absurd trades…The Hawks are not trying to go over the luxury cap and they have NO assets !!!!

Nobody is going to trade for an injured Al Horford
Nobody is going to trade for Joe Johnson with that massive contract he has.

Nobody is going to trade for Josh Smith in the middle of a short season.

Nobody is going to trade for Kirk Hinrich even with his expiring contract..

Nobody is going to trade for Marvin Williams…

They have no young talent other than Teague and compared to the other young PG’s he’s not that good…not to give up any serious draft picks or established talent.

They have no draft picks – They have no $$$ – They have nothing !!!

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Even if you forget about all of Billy Knight’s draft miscues, in the Sund era alone, the Hawks have wasted THREE first round picks trying to fill the point guard position, even though they drafted their point guard with the first one.

2010 and 2011 first rounders p-ssed away in the useless Kirk trade which would have been completely unnecessary if Teague had just started from the beginning of his second season.

I have mostly gotten over the Marvin and Shelden picks, but these last three years of draft mismanagement have almost been as bad. Using those picks properly wouldn’t have made the Hawks a contender, but it’s the difference between the Hawks being what they are now vs. being, say, the Grizzlies or Nuggets.

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Ramon, even when Josh has a good shooting night from the field, he can still be like 2 – 8 on his jumpshots. That’s why people talk about him. He just can’t settle for those shots, when he’s a 30% shooter from the outside. At least make people foul you, so you can get 1 point out of the possession.

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Absolutely love how Ra’mon is acting like Josh Smith’s poor shot selection only happens once a blue moon. Get real.

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“Hawks G Willie Green left game with back tightness”

Oh no!

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Ra’mon,

The bigger point is Wade and Bosh are better shooters than Josh, so even when they miss the jumpers, you can blame it on them having a bad night.

Josh going 2-12 on jumpers cannot be blamed on “having a bad shooting night”. its Josh gettng jumper happy, despite the fact he sucks shooting jumpers. And it was magnified because he had minimal defensive impact.

Answer me this. Who would you rather have shooting a 18 foot jumper? Bosh or Josh?

However, I’m not saying this loss is on Josh. Its a total team loss, and I’m not saying he’s a bad player. he is arguably our most talented player. I am just reinforcing his addiction when it comes to shooting jumpers. He just cant say no, despite the fact that it kills the team.

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I agree Northclyde,but Drew is to stupid to do it.What has he got to lose with adding T/Mac to the starting unit.Like u said Jeff and Kirk are not true point guards.Thats the main reason the team is struggling to score.

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Rod will not acknowledge the fact that Hinrich played good defense on Jameer in the playoffs, or that Twin played Dwight one on one, which allowed us to stay home and shooters, which ultimately led to Orlando shooting terrible from 3.

Nope. Rod make sit sound like The only reason we won that series is because of jamal.

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I wouldn’t bench Teague for T-Mac, but I would give T-Mac a bigger role in the offense. He can effectively play 3 positions. And if I were the coach, I’d be doing just that on a nightly basis.

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Larry Drew is the worst excuse for a coach that ASG could ever dream of. What the…Golden State? Give me a break. How long can these owners continue to contribute to the humiliation of the Hawks…please, please, sell this team to somebody who is a basketball fan for one, and not a businessman trying to rake in a few dollars. Do it for the fans, and the players. We want a championship contending team, not one that is misguided by this career NBA assistant coach. This guy could not coach his way out of a paperbag. Seriously. Nothing wrong with the players at all…just need some organization. Whew!

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Well i wont be mad if Willie Greens back stays tight,that will give T/Mac more minutes.

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So we didn’t get to hear LD post game because he was in the locker room. He reminds me of the kind of parent who continuously yells and screams at their child, even threatening them. But when push comes to shove, the child still does whatever they want because they know the parent is all talk.

That is LD. All talk, no action.

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Question:

Will Ice Melt ever win a Playoff game?

Ans:

Yea, with a clipboard..lol

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Teague played a fine game offensively. Probably the only Hawk who played well. He found big men for potential scores near the basket on at least 5 or 6 occasions that didn’t end in assists because the big men blew the layup or got fouled.

The starting unit isn’t the one that needs a facilitator. The bench is, which is why LD’s underuse of T-Mac is even more infuriating.

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Is Friday a Trap game Admiral Snackbar?

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“He reminds me of the kind of parent who continuously yells and screams at their child, even threatening them. But when push comes to shove, the child still does whatever they want because they know the parent is all talk.”

Except parents want their kids to have less energy, not more energy.

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Drew no post game interview tonight??????

Poor Coach…….

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Just a terrible lost…

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add me on skype guys, jsmoovehubby247

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“Thats a given just like that stretch of 10 or so games where he averaged like 11 points?”

This ain’t Duck we are talking about. Josh went 16.4 and 9.5 for JAN. and 17.3 and 10.4 this month. What the hell are you talking about? 16 and 17 points are “not like 11 points”.

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Behind the Knicks and Celtics by mid March?

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It’s hard to believe that a man that’s been around basketball so long can be such a horrible coach. I believe probably anyone on this blog can do a better job. He seems to have a lot of favorites buts treats others like crap. I can see him trying to constantly screw Jt but can’t believe his disrespect
for TMac This coach has really hurt this team.

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Wow. This was a disappointing loss for Atlanta Sports fans for sure. I put a lot of the blame for this loss on poor coaching, but the players definitely had their fair share of the blame as well, especially Josh. As I’ve said many times before, Josh Smith does not have the offensive talent to warrant taking 20+ shots per game, unless those shots are high percentage shots, such as dunks in transition or off of pick and rolls, and put-backs. He can take as many shots as he wants, as long as they are high percentage shots, and as long as there isn’t a better option, but that is not the case with Josh Smith most of the time. Most of Josh’s shot attempts are low percentage shots that he “settles” for. I realize that the Hawks are a bit short on scorers at this point, especially with Joe playing sub-par for his standards, but that does not mean that Josh needs to take it upon himself to carry the offense. If anything, that will hurt the team more than help them on most nights.

Josh needs a coach to define a true role for him. I If I were coaching, I’d be telling Josh to defend, rebound, and run the floor, just as any athletic big man should. If he was being defended by a perimeter player or a smaller player in an advantageous situation for him, I’d run an isolation play for him in the post to either get him an easy basket or create an open shot for someone else, but I would never attempt to make him the primary scoring option. I’d try to get him some baskets off of movement with picks and cuts to the hoop also, but I wouldn’t be having him spot up at the 3 point line and at the top of the key the way L.D. has him playing in this offense. That’s just not smart. More than anything, Josh’s play is an indication of a coach doing a poor job of utilizing the strengths of his players. Every good coach knows that in order to get the most out of your players, you need to get them to play to their strengths, not to their weaknesses.

When you play Josh as a perimeter player and give him free reign on the offensive end, he essentially becomes an inefficient volume scorer. Josh’s stats over his last several games strongly emphasize this. Over his last 5 games, Josh is shooting only 35.6% from the field. That is incredibly inefficient for a big man. As a player, when your field goal percentage is that low, it is an indication that either your shot selection is poor or you are shooting the ball too much. In Josh’s case, it is a sign of both. As a professional basketball player, he needs to realize this and make adjustments. Also, if he is unable to realize this on his own (which seems to be the case), it is the job of the coaching staff to communicate that message to the player and emphasize it before, during, and after games. Clearly, that is not happening, and it is the fault of both Josh and the coaching staff, with the primary culprit being L.D..

Now, aside from Josh’s struggles, I’d like to make some comments on what I think have been some very poor decisions on L.D.’s part when it comes to rotations. Lately, L.D. has insisted on playing small ball and playing bench units that involve either Marvin or T-Mac at the 4 at times. This not only exacerbates one the team’s biggest weaknesses with Horford out (lack of rebounding), but it also hurts us on offense. With these small lineups, our offensive rebounding becomes almost non-existent unless Zaza is by the basket, but our shot attempts are almost entirely jumpers as well. Now, obviously,that is going to result in low percentage shots, and is going to take away almost any presence that we have in the paint on the offensive end. It makes almost every player the Hawks utilize worse on the offensive end. It also hurts the team both offensive and defensively when L.D. attempts to go super-small and put Josh at center. It is well known that Josh is not very effective in the post when trying to score over bigger, longer players, and sometimes, he even has trouble scoring against equally sized players who are sound defensively in the post (e.g. Udoh). Putting Josh at the 5 takes away his interior game almost entirely, and forces him ever more into a low percentage play such as putting the ball on the floor and over-dribbling or taking a low percentage outside shot. That’s another reason why Josh has looked so ineffective on offense lately.

Furthermore, we are giving the opposition easy opportunities to score by playing small ball as we have little resistance inside with a perimeter player at the 4 and we give up tons of 2nd chance opportunities with our lack of rebounding. This was even more clear tonight when L.D. essentially turned a sup-bar rebounding team in G.S. (they are out-rebounded by 5 per game on average) into a team that dominated the glass against us while we tried to cheat and play small-ball. On top of all that, we allow taller perimeter players the luxury of being able to shoot over us when we go with these small lineups. It’s no surprise that the Hawks are being dominated on the glass with L.D.’s small lineups.

Now, aside form playing small lineups, L.D. is also continuing to do a poor job of choosing when to sub players in and out. Often, what I notice is that Drew elects to sub players in and out of the game almost purely based upon a set routine that he has become accustomed to, rather than based upon how that player is producing. Often we see a player like Teague or Marvin get hot on the offensive end, and right when that happens, he is subbed out for someone like Hinrich or Radmanovic, who produces poorly during their stints in the game. Also, we often see some players such as Josh or Joe produce poorly and sometimes hurt the team, yet they stay in the game regardless of how badly they have been playing.

L.D. doesn’t seem to have a very good feel for in-game adjustments, especially with it comes to managing his personnel. There’s no reward or punishment, nor is there playing time awarded based upon production. There is no accountability or discipline either, there is simply favoritism and routine. With this type of formula, I do not see this team improving or going very far. As I have said since last season, the single largest issue with this team is coaching. Yes, we may have some personnel issues when it comes to players that we need to improve (such as acquiring better big man depth and a true starting center), however, the team as is still is not playing as well as it could be playing, and that all comes down to coaching. More than anything, this team needs a better coach. I’m sorry, but I just don’t like L.D. as a coach. He was a good player and is probably a respectable guy off of the court, but I just don’t think he really belongs on the sidelines coaching an NBA team, at least not when he’s coaching a team with as many mental issues as the Hawks.

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