Atlanta Hawks: Williams the go-to guy down the stretch
Vivlamore back from Oklahoma and reporting from Hawks practice.
Right now, the fourth quarter belongs to Lou Williams.
That could change. Hawks coach Larry Drew insists playing time down the stretch of games, particularly among the depth of guards, will be determined by who has the hot hand that night.
Guard Lou Williams signed with the Hawks as a free agent in July after seven seasons with the 76ers. CURTIS COMPTON / CCOMPTON@AJC.COM
Williams has been the team’s go-to guy late in the first two games for the Hawks (1-1). He has played every fourth-quarter minute and scored 27 of his 41 points (66 percent) in the final stanzas. In those two periods he is a combined 7-for-17 from the field and 11-for-11 from the free-throw line.
“I just want to be in the rotation,” Williams said. “That’s my main thing. As long as I’m on the court, I just try to maximize the minutes I get and make everything happen that I can.”
He may not start, but Williams has certainly been on the court when it mattered most.
Williams scored a team-high 22 points in the season opening loss the Rockets, with 13 points coming in the final quarter. His 22 points were the second-highest total for a player coming off the bench in his Hawks debut since the team moved to Atlanta in 1968, trailing only Tom Van Arsdale’s 23-point effort versus Portland in 1974.
In Sunday’s victory over the Thunder, Williams scored 19 points, scoring 14 of the Hawks’ final 23 points.
“We decided to ride Lou’s hot hand,” Drew said following Sunday’s game. “He made some really good baskets.”
In the win over the Thunder, Drew said he considered re-inserting starters Jeff Teague, who finished with 16 points, and Kyle Korver back in the game. Williams’ hot hand made Drew reconsider.
“From a coaching standpoint, you are going to ride the hot hand,” Drew said. “I don’t care who it is. In a situation where somebody is playing well, somebody is in a rhythm, somebody is having a good quarter you ride that. I don’t think there is any coach who would not do that. The last thing you want to do is disrupt flow.”
Williams, the runner-up for the NBA’s Sixth Man award last season, leads the Hawks is many statistical categories. He is first in scoring average (20.5), points (41), field goals attempted (31), free throws made (14), free throws attempted (16) and steals (five, tied with Teague). He is second in assists (nine). Despite coming off the bench, Williams is third in minutes played (58), behind Al Horford (71) and DeShawn Stevenson (63) and in field goals made (12).
“That is fine,” Teague said of Williams’ playing time late. “We are all here to win. Whatever we have to do to get a win, we are all with that. Lou had is going (Sunday) and we were all rooting for him. We were all excited to get a win. There are going to be nights like that. I might have it going. Lou. Devin (Harris). It doesn’t matter. We all want to win. We are all Hawks. It doesn’t matter who is playing.”
Practice report
*Josh Smith, who missed Sunday’s game with a sprained right ankle, did not practice Monday but worked on the side with the team’s training staff. Drew said Smith did some shooting. Drew did not know whether Smith could return for Wednesday’s home game against the Pacers, calling the forward day-to-day.
* Backup center Johan Petro (back) also did not practice.
* Drew said he did not feel that Korver, who is 1-for-8 from the field in his first two games, is pressing. “I just think he is trying to find his rhythm,” Drew said. “We are only two games into the season. … One thing about shooters, they know they can have two bad games but they know they can come back and have five good games in a row.”
* Stevenson, Teague and Williams finally allowed rookie John Jenkins to compete in their post-practice 3-point shooting competition. Stevenson won the first game but Jenkins was a clear winner in the second.
- Chris Vivlamore
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207 comments Add your comment
Najeh Davenpoop
November 6th, 2012
3:33 pm
“They’re using the limited 2gm sample size as a way of dismissing or discounting the facts presented on the Horford/Josh comparison.
Yet, most of these same clowns had no problem bashing Horford for not scoring more pts and getting only 5 rebounds, and this was after only (1)ONE gm. WHAT ABOUT THAT SAMPLE SIZE?”
I can’t speak for others, but I was using that one game to talk about Horford playing badly in that game (which he did, and he would likely admit it). You, on the other hand, are using two games to draw general conclusions about one player being better than the other. That is the difference.
Ken Strickland
November 6th, 2012
3:35 pm
I wish JSmith would take a page from book of Ivan. IJohnson allowed his temperment, lack of maturity and/or focus to interfer with him becoming a fulltime NBA player. Josh is allowing his temperment, lack of maturity and/or focus to get in the way of him becoming an Allstar, which he desperately covets.
In the last gm we all saw Ivan smile at a bad call by the ref. In the past that call probably would have set him off, but he’s learned how to deal with it in a mature and beneficial way. After 9 yrs in the league, and after it’s cost him what he seems to want as much as anything, he’s still taking the same illadvised approach. It doesn’t seem as if he’s learned a doggone thing.
This team could easily become a top 2 Eastern Conference team if Josh would just grow up and harness his yet untapped potential. If that happens, he and Horford would form an unstoppable duo. I wonder if LDrew still intends on starting Korver at SF against Lebron.
Najeh Davenpoop
November 6th, 2012
3:36 pm
Put it this way — if I was using small sample sizes the way you do, I would have said “Al is a terrible rebounder” (which is plainly false) as opposed to “Al is rebounding really bad in this game” (which was true).
MaconBaby
November 6th, 2012
3:41 pm
thank you Najeh
I’m done with his comparison
MsDee
November 6th, 2012
3:54 pm
Tell em’ KenS!!
Ken Strickland
November 6th, 2012
3:56 pm
DAVENPOOP-Look at their career MPG, FGA, FG%, 3P FGA, and 3P FG% that I posted and tell me what general conclusions were drawn? If you’d bother to look at the facts rather than defending your assumptions, you’d see that those 2 gm stats pretty much represent their career differences.
And I never said one player was better than the other. I only pointed out that Horford was more mature, efficient, and offensively versatile, while Josh was a better overall DEF player. The rest is nothing more than an assumption on your part.
I used those 2 gms to show how much more efficient Horford was as a scorer than Josh, but you’ve chosen to misrepresent. Horford is definitely a more efficient scorer, while Josh is a volume scorer, which is evidenced by the 2 gm shooting stats, as well as their career shooting stats. If you continue trying to bend light, it will only limit how far ahead you can see.
Najeh Davenpoop
November 6th, 2012
4:04 pm
“I only pointed out that Horford was more mature, efficient, and offensively versatile”
FG% says nothing about who is more offensively versatile. That is why I brought up Tyson Chandler. Under your logic, Chandler is the most efficient and offensively versatile scorer in the league. Stats mean nothing when they are taken out of context. Josh gets more shot attempts than Al because he is more capable of creating shots for himself than others. And at this point, nobody has come up with a stat that encompasses this well.