Hawks ready for dangerous game against the Wizards
The Hawks are rested for what a few players said could be a dangerous game against Washington at Philips Arena tonight.
The Wizards are the NBA’s only winless team (0-9), which would make them easy enough to overlook. On top of that, the Hawks are facing games at a resurgent Charlotte (5-4), vs. the Clippers (8-2) and vs. Charlotte.
But Al Horford said the Hawks won’t overlook Washington.
“They are hungry for a win,” he said. “They are going to be ready.”
Coach Larry Drew said the Hawks will start Horford, Josh Smith, Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver and Devin Harris, the same starting five that defeated Orlando 81-72 on Monday in what was a ragged performance affected by some members of the team being struck by the flu and four games on the West Coast.
“I’m hoping we will be a lot better than we were on Monday night,” Drew said. “(I) didn’t see the sharpness or crispness with our execution.”
Drew gave the Hawks Tuesday off so that the players who have logged a lot of minutes could rest. Teague said it looked like the team got its legs back.
The Hawks will need to be sharp against the Wizards, led by guards Jordan Crawford and Bradley Beal. That duo is combining to average almost 24 points per game. Teague said the key to slowing them down is to consistently challenge them around the 3-point line. Washington is hitting 30.4 percent of its 3-point attempts and is averaging 86.9 points per game, compared to the Hawks’ 92.9 scoring average.
Though the Wizards are winless, five of those losses have come by seven points or less. They could be bolstered by the return of Nene.
“This Washington Wizards team is a team that’s very capable,” Drew said he told the team. “They’ve got some good players over there and some guys that have a lot of pride that have been in their ball games.”
– Doug Roberson, AJC (filling in for Chris Vivlamore)
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253 comments Add your comment
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:15 pm
LOL, Seraphin should have fouled AL instead of giving him a layup….
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:15 pm
Please don’t put Jordan in.
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:16 pm
Melvin . . I agree.
High-sider
November 21st, 2012
10:16 pm
What the hell is wrong with “Free throw” Boss?
terrell
November 21st, 2012
10:16 pm
Where’s Morrow and Ivan tonight? Why is LD giving Devin all these min?
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:17 pm
Wide open . . . wooooowwww
And korver wins it . haha
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:17 pm
Big shot by Korverl…
tjhook
November 21st, 2012
10:17 pm
Does anyone think the Lakers would be interested in a Gasoline for Al Horford trade. I would miss Horford’s feistiness but the team would really benefit from a big post player.
High-sider
November 21st, 2012
10:17 pm
Korver….BAM!!!!
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:18 pm
Please don’t put Jordan in . . Please/
tjhook
November 21st, 2012
10:18 pm
Officially on the Kyle Korver team
EW
November 21st, 2012
10:18 pm
Josh is doing his iso-joe routine tonight. He will never admit that Jeff Teague is option #1 on this team. Get what you can at the draft deadline.
Smokey
November 21st, 2012
10:18 pm
why cant harris play back up PG and play the other sg’s in proper position. LD seems to want everyone to be a combo. Morrow/Lou/Korver should be at the 2 and whoever is hot keep em in.
Is it a defensive issue with teague/morrow/korver in a small lineup giving up too much def or size?
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:18 pm
OMG
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:20 pm
No good should be the calll
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:20 pm
LOL . . hawks are lucky as (( bleep ))
What an exciting horrible game.
Mr.E
November 21st, 2012
10:21 pm
Holy S’t
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:21 pm
Take the win and get the hell out of there….WHEW
terrell
November 21st, 2012
10:21 pm
Lucky son of a guns.
Grandmaster JeJe (GM)
November 21st, 2012
10:21 pm
This is the definition of an average basketball team
moboman
November 21st, 2012
10:22 pm
Who needs JJ? We got KK!!!
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:22 pm
AL one rebound short of a triple double…SMH
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:23 pm
3 games went into OT tonight, with the 4th one still going in the Clippers vs Thunder. I wonder what the record is for OT games in one night?
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:24 pm
Game ball goes to Randy Wittman the wizards coach for not playing NeNe more in crunch time b/c when their two bigs played together, it gave the Hawks fits….
High-sider
November 21st, 2012
10:24 pm
Josh Smith: 3-3 from the FT line
Al Horford: 1-10 from the FT line
GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bubacar aw
November 21st, 2012
10:25 pm
Huh the hawks won…..yay yay…ESPN and NBA.com are just slow to update whoopty doo woo
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
10:26 pm
JeJe . . . it’s 2007 all over again. That team was wildly inconsistent. You never knew what team would show up.
hawkfan
November 21st, 2012
10:26 pm
it was a blessing in disguise as I thought at the time when Josh Smith fouled out he kept shooting dumb shots
Cali OG
November 21st, 2012
10:28 pm
As soon as Josh fouled out, I said to myself “self, now they gonna win”. Because the coach has long since “lost him”, trade him as soon as strategically feasible…I know GM has seen enough. Josh and Hawks Nation need a fresh start…inoperable cancer.
Najeh Davenpoop
November 21st, 2012
10:31 pm
Korver is the man. This team has several problems, but the two that crop up EVERY SINGLE GAME are a) the 2nd unit can’t score consistently with Lou at PG, and b) they are horrendous at rebounding, especially at the PG, SG, and SF positions. Both of these issues nearly got them killed in this game.
Grandmaster JeJe (GM)
November 21st, 2012
10:33 pm
Didn’t see game. Josh was 11-19?!?!
Looks like he had idiotic plays at end
And I feel every time LD mentions pregame how we have to execute better, we play worse
Najeh Davenpoop
November 21st, 2012
10:33 pm
Al was 1 rebound away from a triple double but nearly gave the game away at the FT line and got abused by Seraphin. Strange game for him. (Not that Josh was significantly better against Nene when he came in for Vesely.)
Najeh Davenpoop
November 21st, 2012
10:34 pm
I will be maybe the only person who gives LD some credit for this game, but he consistently drew up great plays out of timeouts and smartly benched Lou in the 4th quarter instead of forcing him back in. Way to play the hot hand (relatively speaking).
sameba
November 21st, 2012
10:35 pm
When LD finally understands that Lou is not a point guard????
Cedrick
November 21st, 2012
10:35 pm
Look, I have a question. Why did we draft John Jenkins???? Cause it seems like he is getting the same treatment Teague did as a rookie. The guy looks to be a beast from the 3pt line. Lets not force feed us these retreads and let valuable playing time for the rookie get lost in translaton. Let the guy play and let us see if he can compete.
2 FOR JOHN DREW
November 21st, 2012
10:36 pm
Maybe if the home crowd chants ” MISS IT ” ….. Josh might stop all this outside shooting …. He must hit those outside shots in practice …. GEESH !!!!!!!!!!!!
STUNTMAN
November 21st, 2012
10:40 pm
The hawks were supposed to be a team that scores a lot of points but can’t defend, instead they have a top five defense ( better than last year) and they rank 24 in offence, if they reach their offensive potential they’ll be unstoppable .
High-sider
November 21st, 2012
10:43 pm
The Heat’s “Big 3″ combine for 80 points tonight against the Bucks [James - 28pts; Wade - 28pts; Bosh - 24pts.]
Melvin
November 21st, 2012
10:45 pm
I must admit, the Hawks were the beneficiary of some bad calls tonight…LOL, about time…
HawkFan
November 21st, 2012
10:49 pm
This team is not put together very well but in Ferry defense you take what you get to unload salary. Need to try Morrow and Korver in game at same time with Teague, Al, Josh or ZaZa
Slimjr
November 21st, 2012
10:51 pm
One 8th of the season gone and Larry sits at 6-4 with a top 5 ranked defense?
At this clip he should win close to 48-50 games…Impressive indeed should he achieve that feat..
Maybe Danny is right when he said he’s only 2 years away? Hmmm
8-1
26-7
Knicks down 1 with 1:15 left in the game in Dallas..
Najeh Davenpoop
November 21st, 2012
10:52 pm
Josh, Al, and Zaza were the only players on the Hawks with more than 5 rebounds. Teague 45 minutes, 1 rebound. Korver 44 minutes, 2 rebounds. Harris 34 minutes 3 rebounds. Lou 16 minutes, 0 rebounds. This simply cannot continue.
Slimjr
November 21st, 2012
10:57 pm
Melo just pulled an Osh and shot a midrange brick! They lose…
northcyde
November 21st, 2012
11:03 pm
Al and Josh played the best bad games I’ve ever seen.
Slimjr
November 21st, 2012
11:09 pm
Kevin Love comes back a month or two early and goes for 34 and 14? Crazy!
JaeEvolution
November 21st, 2012
11:15 pm
With K-Love back, I think Derrick Williams is on the block. I haven’t seen a lot of him and don’t know if he could play 3, but if a deal could be worked out with Harris for Williams + filler, it would be good for us.
Najeh Davenpoop
November 21st, 2012
11:17 pm
I think the reason Derrick Williams is on the block is because he can’t play the 3. If he could play the 3 he’d fit perfectly with Love and Pekovic in the front court. He is a tweener who doesn’t do either forward position all that well.
Ken Strickland
November 21st, 2012
11:19 pm
NAJEH-This is exactly why I say we should have kept a rebounder and defender like DJames. We can’t continue relying of Josh, Al and Zaza for our rebounding, especially with Drew’s habit of playing IJohnson so inconsistently. We definitely can’t continue with the level of DEF and rebounding we’ve been getting from our SFs.
At any rate we know Drew wouldn’t play DJames, let alone start him, even if he was on the team. I really like the way Teague has matured and plays under control. He’s running the half court OFF, and creating easy scoring opportunities for his teammates with his penetration. He could easily increase his scoring if he played as aggressively as TParker on OFF.
Josh is starting to become a black hole when the ball reaches his hands. While HORFORD HATERS love to make an issue of his jab step, they seem to go blind when Josh faces up an does the same doggone thing, only to end up taking a long jumper. He has enough trouble hitting wide open jumpers, which teams are more than happy to give him, yet he’s starting to shoot fall away jumpers rather than passing the ball out.
I wish he’d get his head out of his anus and start shooting more bank shots rather than always shooting for the rim.
Buddy Grizzard
November 21st, 2012
11:23 pm
Was thinking about that as well Jae.
richbrave
November 22nd, 2012
12:32 am
Well, it WAS a dangerous game! Knock me over with a feather on turkey day. LD was on the money. I had no idea NENE would have that much impact on this game, but he made all the difference knocking HORFORD, SMITH and PECHULIA off the block. What a difference some heft and athleticism make in the paint. HAWKS dodged a bullet in this one.