Caution: There’s a dangerous basketball team at work
This isn’t a great team, but we’ve known that all along. What we now know is that it’s again a dangerous team. Indeed, these Hawks are more dangerous than they were a year ago, when all they did was force the champs-to-be to a Game 7.
You wouldn’t bet on the Hawks to win the NBA title, but you wouldn’t want to face them, either. All the elements that fueled last spring’s run are still in place, with this bonus: They now know what the postseason entails, whereas last season’s team was flying blind.
“We’re more dangerous now,” Josh Smith said Sunday. “We have more experience. We’ve been in the playoffs.”
Smith spoke after a game in which he, Joe Johnson and Al Horford combined to score eight baskets, and still he wore a winner’s glow. The Hawks had beaten the NBA’s second-best team by 10 points, and beating the Lakers to close a nine-day stretch that included losses to Cleveland, San Antonio and those infernal Celtics was more than a tonic. It was a signal flare.
There’s a toughness about the Hawks, a toughness born in that Boston series and cultivated over a season that has exceeded expectation. If they split their final eight games, they’ll finish 47-35. That would constitute a 10-game upgrade without adding a real starter, although the guy starting in Marvin Williams’ stead had a bigger impact Sunday than the famous Kobe Bryant.
Philips Arena was packed for the occasion, with at least a third of the patrons wearing gold and purple. The Lakers drew within a point at the half, whereupon you figured Kobe would do his thing and that’d be that. Instead it was the promoted sub Maurice Evans, known as Mo, who did the Kobe thing. (The MoBe thing?)
Evans hit a trey 17 seconds into the third quarter. Then he hit another, and another. (The Hawks made six three-pointers in the period.) In the final 20 seconds, he scored off a dunk spawned by Johnson’s strip of Bryant, and now it was 72-58 and the Lakers were finished.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.“This was definitely important for our confidence,” Evans said. “We’d won seven in a row before we lost, and you don’t want to lose momentum now. There aren’t many games to get it back.”
One home win on a Sunday in March doesn’t mean the Hawks are unbeatable. That said, they’re a hard bunch to beat. They have enough of what you want in a playoff team – a slew of shooters, some seasoned reserves and the capacity to defend at every position save point guard – to make other qualifiers nervous.
“I view us as a very dangerous team,” Evans said. “We’re flying under the radar. We’re not expected to contend for the championship, and that’s the kind of team you have to look out for.”
The Hawks will finish fourth in the East, and you have to like their chances in Round 1. Philadelphia is working without Elton Brand, and Miami is essentially a one-man gang. Beyond that looms Cleveland, and that’s a tall assignment. But it’s no taller than the Celtics in 2008.
Only a fool would pick the Hawks to unhorse LeBron’s bunch. That said, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see these Hawks in another Game 7, this time in Round 2, this time knowing full well how a Game 7 on the road feels.
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53 comments Add your comment
truth-serum
April 2nd, 2009
6:23 pm
JuliusCesaer
April 1st, 2009
3: 39 PM
I appreciate you and Mark Bradley, two wonderful guys. You are entitled to disagree. That’s fair. The reality, however is David and Chipper Bubba Jones were contemporaries, and made the major league debuts four years apart. No. They were on the same playing levels and shared time in the minors. No, Chipper did not see him as a mentor but as a black man taking glory away from a privileged player who is white. After Justice’s famous statement and world series winning home run. Chipper felt that he was being overshadowed and Justice had to go(small pun here).
No mentor there, get your facts straight.
You are also wrong about Michael Vick. He will be back and will recover. He will also be a better man and learn to love God. I’m sorry you wish and feel differently. We disagree there. I am loving, caring and like to build people up, forgive, watch people grow and develop. I dint throw out the baby with the bath water.
Your view is cold, venomous and malicious.
I found this article in today’s paper. What do you think?
Vick’s plan: Construction job, then NFL by Sept.
Imprisoned QB’s representatives map out plans in bankruptcy court
By JEREMY REDMON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Newport News, Va. – Michael Vick will work a $10 an hour construction job once he is released on home confinement, his lawyer said at a bankruptcy hearing for the imprisoned Falcons quarterback Thursday.
Vick’s agent, Joel Segal, also testified at the hearing that he hopes
Vick is back in the NFL by September.
He has already been offered a job to work at a local construction company for an hourly wage 40 hours a week once he leaves prison, Blumenthal said.
“He is going to turn a new leaf,” Blumenthal said. “He has learned from what occurred in his life.”
According to the Associated Press, Vick plans to work for $10 an hour at one of W.M. Jordan Co.’s 40 commercial construction jobs, said John Robert Lawson. His father, Robert Lawson, helped start the Newport News Company.
Lawson, 57, said that he has known Vick for more than 10 years and that they have been involved in charitable work together. He said Vick’s representatives approached him when he was turned away by other employers.
“I believe all of us make mistakes, and once you’ve fulfilled your commitment and paid the price, you should be given a second chance,” Lawson said in a telephone interview with the AP.
“He’s not a bad person. He made some bad choices,” Lawson said.
Blumenthal also highlighted a proposed agreement with the U.S. Labor Department, which has accused Vick of illegally spending about $1.3 million in pension plan funds for his own benefit, including paying his bankruptcy attorney and restitution ordered as part of his conviction on federal dog fighting charges.
Vick’s attorneys said they are also working with the regional office of the U.S. trustee to settle its objections to Vick’s plan.
Blumenthal said the overall bankruptcy case has been difficult to resolve, especially because Vick is serving a 23-month federal prison sentence for his role in the dog fighting conspiracy.
“I have to admit this is probably the hardest case I have had in my career,” Blumenthal said.
Federal authorities transported Vick to the courtroom from his prison in Leavenworth, Kan., last week. He is expected to return to Leavenworth after his bankruptcy trial ends tomorrow. The suspended NFL star, however, is due to be released to home confinement at his house in Hampton, Va., on May 21.
Vick was led into the courtroom this morning just before 10 a.m. He wore a gray suit and has slight sideburns and a goatee. He turned around several times from the table where he sat beside his attorneys, smiling and waiving at his mother, Brenda Boddie, and fiancée, Kijafa Frink. Boddie responded by smiling and quietly saying, “My baby.”
Have a nice day.
truth-serum
April 2nd, 2009
6:24 pm
B.T.W Vick is 28
JuliusCesaer
April 6th, 2009
5:06 pm
truth-serem. I appreciate your comments. But my responses about Vick were not venemous at all. Those are facts, you see, and I hope you know that I am not responsible for Vicks venemous acts that he committed to put himself in the predicament that he is in in prison. You think I am venemous, Ill show you venemous; how about drowning, electrocuting, killing and hanging innocent, precious dogs. Is that venemous? The person who was venemous was Mike Vick and dont ever forget it. Vick got what he deserved and will continue to pay for his crimes so that justice will eventually be served.