Atlanta Hawks: Notes and quotes

• Josh Smith was walking without a noticeable limp today. He plans to test his sprained left knee at shootaround tomorrow morning in Boston. “I haven’t done anything as far as running on it,” he said. “I will have to see how it feels tomorrow. At shootaround I will probably try to go a little bit harder than I normally do and see how it feels.”
• Told that Larry Drew said the decision on whether to play is up to him, Josh said: “Oh, they are going to put the pressure on me like that? [He was smiling]. It’s OK. If it feels good, I’m going to go. I’m not one to harness injuries. I have a high threshold for pain. If I feel like I can go a little bit I’m going to step out on floor.”
• Asked if he feels a sense of urgency to play in Game 3 because the Hawks are already thin with big men, Josh said: “I don’t want to put that much pressure on me. I understand how important this series is but it’s more than one game. I don’t want to go out there too early and risk getting injured more than I have.”
• Dr. Alexis Colvin, an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said patellar tendonitis develops through overuse. Colvin said that there can be risk of further injury because of weakness in the joint but that it’s possible for athletes to continue playing if they can tolerate the pain. “It is something you can potentially play with if the symptoms are not that bad,” she said.
• Drew: “It’s strictly going to go on his call. I know Josh, he’s a warrior. If he feels like he can play, he wants to be out there. If he can’t go we don’t want him out there limping around and injuring the knee.”
• During the portion of practice open to media, the starters were Jeff Teague, Kirk Hinrich, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady and Erick Dampier (who was felling in while Jason Collins rested his sore left Achilles).
• My guess is if Josh can’t go, it would be Marvin Williams starting at power forward rather than McGrady, which I think could be a good idea (more on that later). Drew: “We go in looking at matchups. We will probably have to move Marvin to playing more four than normal. We will probably have to play T-Mac some there. We have to try to get as much production as we can knowing that guys are out of position.”
• Zaza Pachulia offered the most detailed info yet on the left foot injury he suffered April 13. He said he suffered a bone chip in his left foot as well as a sprained left ankle and was told by a foot specialist that it would take 4-6 weeks of rehab. It will be three weeks tomorrow since the injury, so best-case scenario means a return for Game 6 Thursday if the series is extended.
• Zaza said he’s tried to speed up the process but “you can’t outrun the timeline” for the injury: “It’s getting better. I haven’t tried to run or jump yet [because] the doctor hasn’t cleared me. When I walk it’s fine but as soon as I put pressure on it, it hurts.”
• The Hawks have scored 90.5 points per 100 possessions in this series after posting a 92.2 mark in the three regular-season games against Boston. Consider that Charlotte had the least efficient offense during the regular season at 92.3 points per 100 possessions (a comparison that comes with a large vs. small sample size disclaimer). Clearly the Hawks have struggled to score all season against Boston but they were talking about defense a lot over the last couple days.
• Drew: “We just had too many defensive breakdowns, which you just can’t have in the playoffs. The margin for error in the playoffs is just too slim and as the playoffs go on it becomes even slimmer. We had too many defensive breakdowns and it started with our transition defense. Boston is not a team not known to get out and run a lot but they ran us constantly. Gave up 11 fast-break points that first game and we counted 28, me and the staff, in [Game 2]. That’s way, way, way too many.”
• According to Synergy Sports Technology, Boston used 10 transition possessions in Game 1 and scored 40 percent of the time for 0.9 points per possession. In Game 2, the Celtics used 18 transition possessions and scored 61 percent of the time for 1.22 points per possession.
• That’s a big difference for two teams that played to a draw offensively during the regular season. It also hints that the Celtics decided they had to push the pace without Rajon Rondo. Drew: “Not taking anything way from them but they are just not known for being a running team. They must have saw something that fueled them to get out and run more. We have to combat that.”
• Marvin: “They had a few fast-break points on us and that’s normally not like us to give up that many.” He’s right: The Hawks had the sixth-best defensive efficiency in transition during the regular season, allowing 1.12 points per possession.
• How can the Hawks be better defending the break? “We have to do a better job with our defensive balance,” Marvin said. “A lot of times we would have two, three, four guys going to the offensive glass and just kind of hanging out in the paint area.”
• Drew’s message for his players today focused on sharper execution during the the late third-, early-fourth periods. Boston has dialed up its defensive pressure in both games during that time. Drew told his players the Celtics especially pressured the wings and the elbow area, forcing catches farther away from the basket to disrupt the offense, and also said Boston loaded up when the Hawks kept the ball on one side of the floor.
• Drew: “It was our inability to get into our sets. We allowed the pressure to take us out of what we wanted to do. You can’t allow that to happen, not in the playoffs. You’ve got to do things harder, do things with pace. We were too lethargic, too methodical.”
• Collins: “We have to continue to get out on the break and get some easy baskets in transition and offensively we’ve got to continue to try to attack the basket and get to the free-throw line.”
• Joe : “In the first two, three quarters we are probably at our best running and getting up down the floor. Then in that fourth, for whatever reason–fatigue maybe—we just get a little stagnant and our offense just doesn’t flow as much. That is something we will look at on tape and try to make adjustments, and I am sure we will do better.”
• Yes, I know, blog people. Play faster, attack the basket, earn free-throws–you’ve heard all of this before.
• Drew on whether he will stagger the rest periods for his starters to counter Doc Rivers riding Rondo, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett: “I want to make sure if I can get guys proper amount of rest. I do want to ride my starters but I don’t want to wear them out. It’s going to be a long series. I could probably stagger them a little bit more but I have to make sure I don’t wear guys down and run them in the ground. I have all the confidence in the world in my bench. They’ve been good for us all season and I’m not going to give up on them now.”
• Marvin on the reserves: “It’s taken a couple of us a little while to get going. Sometimes we don’t really have a little while. We’ve got to make a conscious effort to get out there and get started a little sooner.”
• Rondo says he will “try and not let my emotions get the best of me” in return from suspension.

Michael Cunningham, Hawks beat