This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > May
May 2008
Rage-inducing college football predictions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Tech will be better than you think. Clemson will be worse than you think. The Heisman will be won by you know who, and the SEC West will be won on the basis of who plays where. And I have it on good authority that Georgia will again field a team.
Yes, it’s time for our annual long-range look at college football, designed to edify but more apt to enrage. Read on if you care to get as mad as Bama fans are over Tommy Tuberville’s latest hand salute to the Tide.
— Alabama will beat Clemson on Aug. 30 in the Georgia Dome. I’m not as high on the Tide as a year ago — I did, I’ll admit, get carried away on the zephyrs of Sabanmania — but I’m never high on the Tigers. And if Clemson is considered the class of the ACC, it tells us the expanded ACC has failed to evolve into the colossus many foresaw. (Fun fact: Since the league grew to 12 teams, the ACC champ is 0-3 in the Orange Bowl.)
— Speaking of which … the losses of Tashard Choice and Philip Wheeler and a change in coaches and quarterbacks and systems could have doomed Georgia Tech to a fitful season of transition, but Paul Johnson came to the right conference. His spread option will look better than in the spring game — it couldn’t look worse — and there are enough winnable ACC games on the card to lift the Jackets to 7-5 yet again.
— Speaking of the spread option … Auburn will profit from new offensive coordinator Tony Franklin and new quarterback Kodi Burns, but the Tigers will profit mostly from the schedule, which favors them hugely in even-numbered seasons. (Auburn went 13-0 in 2004 and should have won the SEC in 2006.) The Tigers play LSU, Tennessee, Arkansas and Georgia at home; they play Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Alabama on the road. Ergo, Auburn wins the SEC West.
— Speaking of the spread option … the most stylistically intriguing nonconference game will come Oct. 23, when Auburn, which has switched to the spread, visits West Virginia, which has run the spread better than any team but has, as you may have heard, lost its coach to Michigan. Give the Tigers a hand for daring to go on the road. Give the Mountaineers the W, though.
— Speaking of nonconference games … the winner of USC-Ohio State on Sept. 13 will play for the BCS title. It’ll be a Trojan conquest. That difference-in-speed thing again.
— Tim Tebow will claim another Heisman because he’s really good and because he either runs it or throws it every down and because there’s an aura around him. This does not, however, mean that Tebow’s team will beat Georgia. The Bulldogs will, for the third time in their history, defeat a Florida team quarterbacked by the eventual Heisman winner. (It happened against Tebow last year and in 1966 against some guy named Spurrier.)
— Some folks believe Texas will be the fifth-best team in the Big 12. Me, I’m not yet sold on Missouri and Kansas and Texas Tech, and I’m starting to wonder about Oklahoma. Me, I see Texas winning the conference.
— Wake Forest will win the ACC Atlantic because Clemson won’t. Virginia Tech will win the Coastal by default. Wake will then beat Tech before a non-crowd of 41,000 in Tampa.
— Have I forgotten anybody? Oh, yeah — that team from Athens. The Bulldogs will go 11-1 — the loss will be at Auburn, not at Arizona State or at LSU — and will win the SEC East. Then they’ll beat the Tigers in the Dome for the conference title. Then they’ll beat USC in Miami for the national championship. Then Michael Adams will say, “You know what? This BCS deal really isn’t so bad.”
Permalink | Comments (315) | Post your comment | Categories: Tech/ACC, UGA/SEC
Advice for new Hawks GM Sund
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Hawks hold no picks in next month’s draft, but their general manager still faces significant choices. Speaking of Rick Sund, co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. said Thursday: “Every decision with regard to this franchise is going to be his decision.”
Here are the issues at hand, and here, for the new man, is some unsolicited advice:
Mike Woodson: Keep or dump?
This is tricky, given that Gearon has expressed his desire to retain Woodson, whose contract expires July 1. If Sund indeed has carte blanche, he should be able to hire the coach of his choosing. But does any GM want his first move to be a refutation of an owner’s stated wishes?
Luckily, there’s a middle ground here. Sund could offer a one-year extension. That way he could be seen as erring on the side of continuity while committing himself to nothing long-term. And if Woodson balks to the point of demanding more years, the new GM could wind up getting to hire his own man for next season anyway.
Recommended course: Sund should tell Woodson, “Your career record is 106-222. You’re lucky I’m offering another week, let alone another year. Take it or leave it.”
Josh Smith: Keep or dump?
The feeling is that some other team — Philadelphia has long been rumored as a suitor — will make a Joe Johnson-type offer to the free agent. (Say, $70 million over six seasons.) These owners could well be tempted to do a sign-and-trade and let Smith leave rather than match such a windfall. Here’s where Sund’s 30 years of NBA experience must be brought to bear.
No matter what the sign-and-trade package might be, it won’t include any player who fuses proven performance with such untapped potential. Already really good, Smith could/should get way better. It was evident in the Boston series that, for all the Celtics’ depth, they had only one man capable of playing so far above the rim, and that one — Kevin Garnett — is 10 years older.
•Recommended course: Sund should tell his owners, “Nobody in this draft and not many guys in the league can do what Smith does. If we let him leave, we’ll spend the next decade regretting it.”
Josh Childress: Keep or dump?
The Hawks might try to pinch pennies on Childress, who is also a free agent and who could command even wider interest than Smith. Ownership could say, “Do we really need to pay $40 million over six seasons for somebody who doesn’t start?”
Two years ago, the answer would have been no. But it became evident in the playoffs — Childress was, with the possible exception of Johnson, the most impressive Hawk over seven games — that he’s exactly the sort of dauntless sub who makes good teams good. The Hawks have a chance to stay good for a long time if they tend to business this summer.
Recommended course: Sund should say, “If we don’t match, we’ll have to find someone like Childress somewhere else. It’ll be simpler and cheaper to keep what we have.”
Mike Bibby: Keep or dump?
He helped the Hawks make the playoffs but was mostly awful in the seven games against Boston. He just turned 30 and will be a free agent after next season, during which he’s scheduled to make $14.5 million. Sund has indicated to the AJC’s Sekou Smith that he’s high on Acie Law IV.
For a franchise unaccustomed to spending big, keeping the Joshes will represent a massive outlay, and there will be some sentiment to ease the burden. But even if Bibby isn’t the long-term answer, this is no time for the Hawks to get stingy. For the first time in a decade, they’ve got something going.
Recommended course: Sund should say, “We need Bibby because Law isn’t quite ready. If he proves otherwise next season, I’ll try to move Bibby at the trading deadline. But not just yet.”
Permalink | Comments (77) | Post your comment | Categories: Hawks/NBA
Hawks wisely broke from the past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This will sound weird, but here it is: When Chris Grant’s name surfaced for the Hawks’ general manager job, I thought of Marion Campbell and Jerry Glanville and June Jones.
I thought not so much of the Hawks of today but of the Falcons of yesteryear. I thought of the Smiths hiring three consecutive head coaches not so much because they were the best men available but because they’d worked for the Smiths before.
Because Chris Grant had worked here under Pete Babcock and Billy Knight, because the Gearons had come to know Grant, he was given a longer look as a candidate than his accomplishments should have warranted. That was a troubling sign.
For reasons unclear, discussions with Grant were finally broken off. (Either he turned the job down or the Hawks got cold feet, depending which side you believe.) The Hawks hired Rick Sund instead, and Sund is precisely what they need: An outsider to Atlanta who’s an NBA insider, a career basketball man capable of casting a cold eye on assets and liabilities.
The Hawks aren’t far from being really good. For all Knight’s draft errors, he finally built a playoff-caliber roster. What’s needed now is an architect capable of turning raw material into a finished product. Grant wouldn’t have been seen as new management. On the contrary, he’d have been perceived as a link to the inglorious past.
The Michael Gearons are bright men, each having built a fortune in separate enterprises — Sr. in construction, Jr. in cellular towers. But they are, it must be said, still relatively new at this ownership thing, and it would have been depressing to see this major hire made on the basis of familiarity. It never worked for the Smiths, and it wouldn’t have worked for the Gearons.
But all’s well — or at least better — that ends well. The Gearons, who have never been involved with any NBA team except this, reached beyond the Perimeter and found a capable man. Good for them.
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Braves on road to greatness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Memorial Day arrived with the Braves in second place. They’ll be in first by the Fourth of July, and come Labor Day they’ll be pulling away.
Only a team of playoff caliber could have handled all the Braves have been forced to handle, and eventually some of these pitchers will get healthy. (Though let’s resolve here and now never to count on Mike Hampton for anything. Our motto: We won’t get fooled again.)
Baseball’s regular season is the great revealer. Any team can get hot for a week or a month, but over 162 games luck flattens out, leaving depth and endurance to prevail. The Braves have already demonstrated the former: With half the staff on the disabled list, they entered play Monday second in the league in ERA; with Mark Teixeira and Jeff Francoeur hitting below .270, the Braves still stood second in batting average.
“We thought we had as good a team as anybody in spring training,” Bobby Cox said. “And we still do.”
We can forget the curious home/road discrepancy. That will flatten out, too. What will ultimately propel this team to the top of the NL East is its professionalism and attention to detail. The Braves have been good for a long time now, but they haven’t always been this meticulous. No matter what mix-and-match lineup Cox has deployed this season, the effect has usually been precision itself.
Consider Monday’s game. Facing Brandon Webb, the league’s best pitcher, they put the ball in play early and often. Good things kept happening. “We didn’t hit him hard,” said Cox, in a rare admission, but they had five runs before they made their sixth out.
The key blows, such as they were: An infield hit by Yunel Escobar; a Chipper Jones single so meek Escobar couldn’t advance; Teixeira’s polite double down the line; a solid single by Gregor Blanco, and a broken-bat flare by Teixeira. Not for nothing did the Braves report for work having struck out fewer times than any other National League team. (See what happens without the whiffmaster Andruw Jones?)
Teixeira finished with four RBIs, yet another sunny sign. “I expect more out of myself,” he said, and it would be a shock if July dawns and this craftsman is still hitting .267. Even so, no Brave — not Teixeira, not Francoeur, not Matt Diaz — has been a complete washout. “Chipper [Jones] and Mac [Brian McCann] have been carrying us, along with Yunel and [Mark] Kotsay,” Teixeira said. “But we’ve all been contributing.”
This isn’t a lineup that rises and falls with one man, and if two months have taught us anything it’s that the same can be said of the pitching staff. Teixeira again: “If you’d have told us all the names we’d be missing in the rotation and the bullpen and that we’d be two games out of first place, I think we’d have taken it.”
Said Cox: “We’ve played exceptionally great. The defense has been great. The bullpen has been great.”
Even if Hampton never starts another big-league game and John Smoltz can’t find a place to pitch that will accommodate his aging arm, there’s enough here to take the East. Florida won’t hold up. The Mets announced Monday they’re keeping Willie Randolph, which is a colossal mistake. That leaves Philadelphia, and the Phils aren’t apt to win a second consecutive division title with so few arms.
These two months haven’t followed the script, but by ad-libbing so glibly the Braves have proved that their Plans B and C are as potent as most teams’ grand designs. Imagine how good this team will be when/if it ever gets to rely on Plan A.
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Dream has potential to be a hit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Dream was in the pulsating midst of a 29-5 run when WNBA president Donna Orender clapped a writer on the back and said, “Pretty good action, huh?”
Let the record reflect that this particular writer, 30 years on the job, had never before been clapped on the back by a league president. Let the record also reflect that Orender wasn’t kidding.
This was pretty good.
There are people who don’t think women’s basketball will fly in a market that hasn’t been overly friendly to the men’s game. And maybe, over the fullness of time, the Dream will indeed die the death of disinterest. But there was nothing blasé about its home opener Friday night, a loud and vibrant affair that was anything but genteel.
“Girls are more physical than guys,” said the Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, watching from the same front-row seat he occupies at Hawks games. “Women have no fear. Look at how many times they hit they floor, and they never complain.”
With a nod toward the visiting bench, where the odious Bill Laimbeer was coaching the Detroit Shock and the objectionable Rick Mahorn was assisting, Wilkins said of his erstwhile nemeses: “They do all the complaining.”
This isn’t basketball played for giggles, this WNBA. This is serious stuff, and we as a city are the better for its arrival. Said Orender, speaking of the league’s feeling when Atlantans petitioned for admission: “We thought, ‘How can we not have been there earlier?’ Atlanta has the demographics and the sensibility. It’s the top television market for the WNBA.”
Who would have guessed? And who would have guessed that, in its initial regular-season home game, the expansion Dream would scare the trousers off the amply upholstered Laimbeer and Mahorn?
(Eyeing Mahorn’s voluminous haberdashery, Wilkins said: “That’s a lot of pants.”)
The Dream led by 18 points in the second quarter and by 13 at the half, and the gathering at Philips Arena — the lower bowl was nearly full, with three-quarters of the upper deck being curtained off — was making a joyous noise. Maybe those three raucous games in the Hawks-Celtics series transformed this formerly sedate building. Or maybe, as Orender averred, there really is a genuine local zest for this product.
“Interest in the WNBA in the Southeast is unbelievable,” the president said. And then: “We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think we were in it for the long haul.”
The throng was announced as a sellout of 10,185, and that development took even the ambitious women of the Dream by delight. Said Ivory Latta, who closed the first quarter with an outrageous runner, “The crowd was amazing … It’s what I envisioned every single night.”
The result itself wasn’t so memorable — the Shock pulled away late, to the conspicuous glee of Coaches McFilthy and McNasty — but the effort was terrific. The Dream played as if it was out to show a new audience something worth coming back to see, and much was.
Betty Lennox made driving bankers reminiscent of Wilkins himself. Sub Erika DeSouza (18 rebounds) was immense underneath. Camille Little, whose boyfriend is the Hawks’ Marvin Williams, played this second quarter the same forceful way her significant other performed in the epic Game 6 against Boston. Technically a 12-point loss, it was in every way that mattered a winning home debut.
“We’re not done yet,” said Dream coach Marynell Meadors. “We’re going to be a pretty good team. Just let us get a chance to learn.”
Said Orender, addressing the addition of Atlanta as a market: “I’m excited beyong measure. It’s exciting to see a dream and help live a dream.”
On this inaugural night, it was indeed exciting to see the Dream, upper case. In the days and years to come, it will be intriguing to watch the Dream grow.
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Mets are a major league mess
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Working with half a pitching staff, the Braves awoke Thursday two games ahead of the Mets. This tells us much about the Braves, and it tells us more about the Mets. It tells us the Mets are done.
For 2 1/4 seasons the Mets have acted as if they’re the National League’s best team, but the cold truth is that they haven’t been anything special since 2006. They fell to historic pieces last fall — 12 losses in their final 17 games — and this year, when they are supposed to prove that collapse was an epic fluke, they’ve proved only that they’re both overheated and undermanaged.
It takes a special sort of club to thrive in New York, and the Mets aren’t it. They have a fractious clubhouse — last week closer Billy Wagner railed at teammates for their lack of accountability — and a manager who once seemed nobly stoic but who has been revealed as serially maladroit.
Willie Randolph couldn’t arrest his team’s slide last September, and over the weekend he was quoted by The Record of Hackensack, N.J., as wondering whether the criticism of him was racially based. He has since sought to distance himself from those sentiments, telling reporters before Wednesday’s loss at Turner Field, “I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was a mistake.”
And here, not for the first or even the hundredth time, we see why the Braves remain the gold standard of communal harmony. They don’t throw 25 players together without consideration for compatibility. (Remember when Sports Illustrated hailed Mets GM Omar Minaya as a “Mixmaster”?) The manager never creates problems; he defuses them. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in 30 years of hanging around clubhouses, it’s that mood absolutely matters.
I don’t know if the Braves will win the NL East. They can’t possibly hold up over 162 games with such a short pitching staff. (Can they?) But there’s a chance the Braves will get healthy. There seems little chance that the Mets will get serene.
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It’s hard to keep track of Spirit roster
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the mazy world of the Atlanta Spirit, you can’t tell the players even with a scorecard. Three of the five main jobs are open, and the other two could be in flux. In that, ahem, spirit, we offer this guide to who could be coming, who could be going, and who’s making the calls.
Position: Hawks general manager • Nuts and bolts: The job opened when Billy Knight resigned 16 days ago. Michael Gearon Jr., one of the many Spirit owners, is heading the search for a replacement. “I’m running that process, with help from my partners,” he said Wednesday. There’s now a short list of candidates, and it includes both seasoned NBA executives and what Gearon called “the next generation.” (He declined to name names.) • Likely suspects: The Hawks are believed to be high on Chris Grant, who was Knight’s assistant here and who’s now the assistant GM in Cleveland, and Tom Sheppard, who’s an assistant to Ernie Grunfeld with Washington. • Unlikely suspect: Dennis Lindsey, the assistant GM in San Antonio, withdrew his name from consideration Tuesday after being identified by ESPN.com as the front-runner. The Hawks, however, might not have been nearly so enthralled. • Hiring timetable: Probably not long after Memorial Day. • Prediction: Chris Grant
Position: Thrashers coach • Nuts and bolts: The job opened Oct. 17, 2007, when Bob Hartley was fired. GM Don Waddell coached the rest of the season, associate coach Brad McCrimmon declining an offer to become head coach after the All-Star break. Waddell will hire the new coach — “that’s 100 percent,” he said Wednesday, speaking from Toronto, where he’s following the Chicago Wolves, the Thrashers’ minor-league affiliate, in the Calder Cup playoffs. He hasn’t interviewed anyone or asked permission to interview anyone. “I’ve been recognizing all the potential candidates and doing research,” Waddell said. • Likely suspects: John Anderson, who coaches the Chicago Wolves; Paul Maurice, who was fired by the Maple Leafs; and McCrimmon. • Unlikely suspects: Ron Wilson, who was fired by San Jose, and Peter DeBoer, who coaches the minor league Kitchener Rangers. DeBoer could be headed for the Maple Leafs and, with six NHL teams looking for coaches, Wilson could see other jobs as more inviting. • Hiring timetable: Early June, according to Waddell. • Prediction: Paul Maurice
Position: Hawks coach • Nuts and bolts: Mike Woodson has been in place since 2003 and has a career record of 106-222. His contract expires on July 1. Gearon said two weeks ago, “Mike deserves an opportunity to see what he can do with this team.” But no extension has been announced, and there’s a chance the new GM will want his own man. • Prediction: Even if the new GM isn’t crazy about Woodson, he’ll be overruled by ownership.
Position: Thrashers general manager • Nuts and bolts: Waddell said last month, “I’m going to continue as GM,” but a subsequent ESPN.com report held that he “has been asked … to give up his duties and accept another management position.” Gearon denied the report but hasn’t yet given Waddell a long-term blessing. (Said Gearon on Wednesday: “Don will continue to be GM,” without specifying for how long.) • Prediction: Waddell will hire the coach and run the June draft and keep his title as general manager but will be augmented by a director of hockey operations, to be hired later in the summer.
Position: Hawks and Thrashers president • Nuts and bolts: Bernie Mullin technically resigned in January, after which Gearon suggested the vacancy wouldn’t be filled. Mullin’s job description was to run the business side of the Spirit and to act as liaison between the teams’ general managers and the owners. It has been speculated that Waddell will replace Mullin after being nudged aside as Thrashers GM. • Prediction: The Spirit will indeed hire a new president, but it won’t be Waddell. The job will be smaller in scope — the GMs will no longer report to the president — and will be tailored strictly to the business side.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Post your comment | Categories: Hawks/NBA, Thrashers/NHL
Rare error: Braves rushed Devine
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a mistake the Braves rarely make, but they made it with Joey Devine. They rushed him. They rushed him to the extent it could have, maybe even should have, ruined him.
The happy news is that it didn’t. Devine is in uniform at Turner Field this weekend, possessor of a 3-0 record and a 0.51 ERA. The bad news: He works now for Oakland.
The Braves traded him to the A’s in January for Mark Kotsay. The Braves got a center fielder. The A’s got a good young arm in dire need of a change. “I was very excited,” Devine said Saturday. “I built a lot of relationships with the Braves, and playing for Bobby Cox was a blessing. But I just felt a fresh start was what I needed.”
After what befell Devine in 2005, it was fair to wonder if anything good would happen for him in this organization. The year started nicely enough, Devine becoming an All-American closer at North Carolina State and the Braves making him their No. 1 pick in the June draft. On cue, Devine blew through Class A and AA, yielding only six earned runs in 22 outings.
Meanwhile, the big-league club was trying to make do without a real closer. (The overmatched Chris Reitsma would finish as the team’s saves leader with 15). On Aug. 19, the call was made for, ahem, Devine intervention.
“He was pitching at a high level, dominating in the minor leagues,” said general manager Frank Wren, then John Schuerholz’s aide-de-camp. “In hindsight, it would be easy to say we [rushed him], but he had the sort of stuff we thought would let him be successful. And we didn’t envision him as a closer; we envisioned him as someone who would help fortify our bullpen.”
Said Cox: “We didn’t have anything else. We were out of everything.”
Devine stayed up all night packing in Mississippi. He caught a morning flight to Atlanta. The Braves were playing San Diego in a Saturday afternoon game on Fox. It went to extra innings. The new guy was deployed to open the 12th. Working on “zero sleep” but a heaping helping of adrenaline, he got through it.
Cox sent Devine back out for the 13th. On the inning’s second pitch, he tore a hip flexor. “I should have been more open with the organization,” Devine said. “I should have stopped immediately, but I didn’t want my major league debut to be an injury.”
It became something worse. Xavier Nady hit a two-out grand slam. Three days later, Devine was touched for another, this one by Jeromy Burnitz in Wrigley Field. Thus did the No. 1 pick become the first pitcher to surrender grand slams in his first two games.
Soon he was back in the minors. It was only during his first bullpen session in Richmond that Devine told coaches about the hip flexor. He healed quickly enough to be named to the parent club’s playoff roster. Alas, another indignity was awaiting.
“If you play 18 innings, somebody’s going to hit something,” Wren said. “It just so happened that [Houston’s] Chris Burke hit a 300-foot popup that got into the first row of seats.”
So that was Devine’s rookie season: Five different uniforms (counting N.C. State’s), two grand slams, one season-ending homer. Over the next two seasons he bounced between the minors and here, never quite seeming the hot prospect he’d been.
Ask Devine if he believes the Braves hurried him, and the first thing he’ll say is, “Not at all.” But then: “It might have been a little quick mentally. To go from the draft to being in the big leagues a month and a half later and then being in the playoffs, I never had time to sit back and think about what was going on.”
At a time when half the Braves’ pitchers are hurt and the cry to promote Charlie Morton from Class AAA is reaching full volume, it’s prudent to recall Joey Devine. “We try to err on the side of caution,” Wren said, and for good reason.
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Wishing the Dream well
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wish them luck. They’ll need it.
The women of the Atlanta Dream will embark Saturday on an inaugural season in a 12-year-old league that has seen four teams fold and two others move. They’re based in a city that has only occasionally embraced pro basketball and has never really warmed to women’s sports. The last Atlanta women’s pro team — the soccer-playing Beat — put a good product on the pitch but its league didn’t make it to Season 4.
But there’s also this: The Dream play a sport more to Americans’ liking, and their league has a better television package than the women’s soccer league ever had. (Remember how WUSA games were on something called Pax TV?) The WNBA gets splashed on ESPN, which everybody recognizes, and eight Dream games will be carried on CSS, which most of us can find.
And there’s also this: hope, a concept closely (and conveniently) allied with Dream.
Ask Ivory Latta, the point guard and centerpiece of the Dream’s marketing campaign, if Atlanta is primed for women’s hoops, and her eyes dance and she flashes a beacon of a smile and she says: “Everywhere we go, whether it’s the mall or out to eat or to the park, people will say, ‘We’re ready! We’ll be there May 23 [for the home opener].’ It’s overwhelming. It’s great.”
A cynic might say the Dream is attempting to fill a niche that doesn’t exist. The women of the Dream aren’t cynics. These players don’t care how many teams have failed or that, after 11 seasons of operation, the WNBA’s average attendance last season was but 7,742.
Says Marynell Meadors, the Dream’s coach: “They don’t know basketball existed except in this moment. The only way they know Cheryl Miller is because she’s on TV doing the NBA playoffs.”
Meadors has a wider frame of reference. She has worked for half of the WNBA teams — the Charlotte Sting and the Miami Sol — that folded.
Of the Dream, she says: “This franchise can definitely make it. There’s a lot of buzz … but we can’t make it if we don’t get support.”
Here’s her pitch: “The city has been wanting to get women’s basketball back since the ‘96 Olympics … We’re very different from the NBA — we’re fan-friendly. If a kid walks up to one of us, she’s going to get an autograph. The NBA has actually learned some things from us. People are taking note, but we need men to take note: This is not like the [women’s] games they saw in high school. This is a good product. We’re fun to watch.”
In an ideal world, a female athlete could work as hard as a male counterpart with the expectation that her labors would someday be similarly compensated. Alas, reality is rather different: The average WNBA salary is around $50,000, or roughly 100 times less than the average NBA salary. Says Latta: “The money is not where it’s supposed to be, but this is about entertaining the fans and winning and having fun.”
And there’s worth in that. Like the Beat before them, the women of the Dream are playing not because they’re making a fortune but because they’re earning a living doing the thing they do best. Like the Beat before them, they present themselves not as limo-driven prima donnas but as real people, and good for them.
Sometimes, though, the Dream would welcome a little pampering. After Thursday’s workout at the Philips Arena practice court — the team will play games at Philips but keeps having to scrounge for rehearsal space — Meadors informed her team there’d be no hot water for showers.
The players groaned. Said Katy Steding, Meadors’ assistant: “Think warm thoughts.”
So should we all. Think warm thoughts for the Dream.
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Andruw’s struggles not surprising
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Andruw Jones hit .222 the year he became a free agent. He’s hitting .179 after signing for $36 million over two seasons. Are you surprised?
He arrived at spring training - new team, new job, new bosses presumably to impress - weighing nearly 250 pounds. (He was listed at 185 when he broke in with the Braves in 1996.) Were you surprised?
He has struck out 39 times as a Dodger. He has 21 hits, only one of them a home run. He has six RBI in 6 1/2 weeks. Are you surprised?
The Dodgers don’t know what to make of their new hire, who’s getting booed by his new constituency. (And aren’t Los Angeles fans supposed to be jaded?) Last week Jones told the L.A. Times, “I don’t care what you think.” This week he told the Associated Press: “It’s eating me up … I’m embarrassed.” Are you surprised?
Me, either.
Jim Edmonds hit .178 with one homer and six RBI and 16 hits against 24 strikeouts for the San Diego Padres this season - and got cut. That’s the kind of low company Andruw Jones is keeping, the same Andruw Jones (plus 40 or so pounds) once likened to Willie Mays. The difference is that Edmonds is 37. Jones just turned 31.
People used to call Andruw Jones a potential Hall of Famer. At the rate of his dizzying descent, he’s about to acquire a singular new tag: The greatest waste - or is that waist? - of talent in the history of the sport.
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Ryan the right QB for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Flowery Branch — He was the right pick at the right time, and here’s why: When you watch the Falcons work, your first thought is no longer about the man who isn’t there; instead your eyes keep moving until you find the new guy. And you like, it must be said, what you see.
That other person, the one who’s in prison, has been rendered yesterday’s news. Tomorrow belongs to the new guy, and this franchise is better for it. The Falcons needed to move on, and how better to do it than with the first draft choice under new management?
Thomas Dimitroff said he didn’t take Matt Ryan because of “symbolism. We needed a quarterback, and he was the best fit for the team.” But then Dimitroff, who grasps both the details and the big picture, concedes the ancillary point: “Now that [the need for a clean break with Michael Vick] was a sidebar.”
Just as there are Falcons fans who aren’t ready to look beyond Vick, there are those who believe this team would have done better by drafting someone else. Those folks will soon feel differently. They will see what Dimitroff saw in Ryan, and what the general manager has seen again in the first two days of minicamp.
“He’s quite impressive,” said Dimitroff, watching the first of Sunday’s two sessions. “In his first practice yesterday there was an element of focus and — I don’t want to say comfort exactly — presence. You look at him now, and you see his savvy and his ability. Yesterday he was tapping himself on the helmet if he made a mistake, saying it was his fault.”
For the record, Ryan hasn’t done everything perfectly. No quarterback ever has. But he’s further along than any rookie has a right to be — “I’m a little more comfortable today,” he said Sunday — and he’s conspicuously the best at his position on this roster. The ball leaves his hand with more authority than when Chris Redman or Joey Harrington delivers a pass, and there seems a palpable sense of purpose when Ryan takes even the third string in and out of a huddle.
“I’ve been really pleased,” said Mike Mularkey, the offensive coordinator. “He’s got more on his plate than most players do; he’s taking a play from me and executing it with all the mechanisms. He can only get better, but does he need to get a whole lot better? No. … He’s not turning around and asking, ‘What was the play?’ He’s got the right answers about everything, and he’s got the right questions, which is even more important.”
We keep hearing about first-round quarterback duds — Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, David Carr, even Harrington — but what we need to ask is: Did any of those possess the same set of tangibles (size and arm strength) and intangibles (football intelligence and leadership capability) as Matt Ryan? The answer is no. He might not win a Super Bowl, but he will not be a flop. He will not allow himself to be a flop.
Mularkey again: “I see him fixing things. I’m usually in the back [during practice] fixing things, but I can’t be there during games. I’ve told him, ‘You’ve got to get the team to follow you.’ “
He did it Boston College, and he’ll do it here. Here’s head coach Mike Smith, recalling Ryan’s predraft workout in Boston: “There were five guys working out with him, and you could feel the energy when he walked into the room. ‘Hey, Matty Ice!’ Seeing the respect he commanded was the thing that struck me the most.”
Some guys just have ‘It,’ however we define that tiny but mighty word. Matt Ryan is among the few. He’ll be starting before the year’s out, and he’ll be winning soon enough. And we don’t need to concern ourselves about what could or should happen when No. 7 gets out of prison. The Falcons have their quarterback, and he wears No. 2.
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Braves lose pitchers, manage wins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For a team in terrible shape, the Braves are in great shape. They keep losing pitchers, and still they’re 18-15 in a division where nobody has caught a flying start. They’re leading the league in batting average and ERA, which tells us that everything the brass thought about this club in spring training is coming to fruition.
Too bad the pitchers keep going splat.
The Braves have needed seven starters to get through 5-1/2 weeks. Two of those seven were pressed into service Thursday, and that doesn’t include Buddy Carlyle, who’s more starter than reliever.
Jo-Jo Reyes, who wasn’t on the Opening Day roster, started the game and lasted eight outs before developing a blister on his index finger. He gave way to Carlyle, who lasted six outs before getting run over by Kevin Kouzmanoff. Two innings later Jeff Bennett, who has both started and closed, took the ball. It was almost a trick question: How many starting pitchers does it take to get through one nine-inning game?
Almost inevitably, the Braves won. They scored five runs, four unearned. A key hit was again delivered by Greg Norton, who wasn’t on the team five days ago. The winning hit was struck by Matt Diaz, who became the author of the team’s first one-run victory of 2008.
Thus has a team without a full rotation and a settled closer won six in a row. Even if there’s an air of unreality about this latest surge, the Braves will take it.
“All of this,” said Tom Glavine, who landed on the disabled list for the first time in his durable life, “is a testament to the depth Frank [Wren, the general manager] spoke about this winter.”
That’s the good news. The bad: It can’t last. Either the Braves start keeping some pitchers healthy or they will, inevitably, begin to lose. You can mix and match for a week or even a month, but not forever.
Said Bobby Cox: “Frank’s working as much as he can [to find more pitching].”
Said Wren: “We’re always looking, always talking. … We’ve got to get a little more definitive on when guys will get healthy.”
In the case of Mike Hampton, the answer could well be never. In the case of John Smoltz, it’s even more complicated. When/if he returns, he has said he’ll move to the bullpen. That would bolster the relief corps while leaving a massive hole in a rotation that, at least on paper over the winter, looked as stout as anyone’s. Then again, should a rotation consisting of so many aging arms ever been deemed sound?
Said the fairly ancient Glavine, parrying the point: “Even the young guys are getting hurt now.”
The spring consensus was that the Braves had nine big-league caliber starters: Glavine, Smoltz, Hampton, Bennett, Carlyle, Reyes, Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens and Chuck James. Four of those have done time on the DL, not counting the two who were dinged Thursday. This doesn’t include the closer Rafael Soriano or the set-up man Peter Moylan, both of whom are ailing. (Or Mike Gonzalez, coming off elbow surgery.) What in the name of horse liniment is going on?
Roger McDowell doesn’t know, and he’s the pitching coach. As such, someone asked, does he take it personally when one of his men gets hurt? “No,” McDowell said. “Everyone’s put together differently. A guy might be throwing his last pitch, or he might have 10,000 pitches left in him.”
The Braves needed 152 pitches from seven pitchers to win Thursday. The victory capped a splendid homestand, but a team cannot subsist on such extraordinary events for long. (For one thing, the already-taxed bullpen will be gassed come June.)
This has been, all things considered, something approaching a great 5-1/2 weeks. But Cox, as he usually does, had it right when he said: “When we get all our top guys back, we’ll be greater.”
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Weird Spirit reward niceness
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s weird, yes, but pretty much everything about the Atlanta Spirit is weird.
Don Waddell takes his team from the playoffs to 28th place in a 30-team league, and he keeps his job. Billy Knight finally lifts his team to the playoffs, and he asks out.
Knight finally finds a point guard, and somehow it’s kinda sorta held against him for taking so long. Mike Woodson takes that point guard and still doesn’t lift his team to .500, and it would seem he’s coming back. (The Hawks were 21-28 on the day Mike Bibby arrived, 16-17 thereafter.)
If there’s a lesson to be learned from all of this - and that’s a big “if” - it’s something like: It never hurts to be nice to people.
Knight wanted to be left alone, which would have been fine were he a forest ranger, but he was the general manager of an NBA team. He could barely bring himself to speak with the media, and when he did he talked rather airily. (His quote from 2006: “I think I know more than anybody else.”)
Said Michael Gearon Jr.: “Billy wasn’t the best with the press. He might have been the worst.”
Waddell, by way of contrast, is famously affable and accessible. He has ingratiated himself with owners - chiefly the Gearons - who were initially skeptical of his Thrashers stewardship. The younger Gearon now defends Waddell the way he used to defend Knight, and if you’re wondering how you can keep your job as your team is falling to pieces … well, that’s one way.
As for Woodson: It was clear all along the Gearons wanted to keep him, too, and the Hawks’ playoff run gave them that justification. “Mike deserves an opportunity to see what he can do with this team,” Gearon Jr. said Wednesday, glossing over the reality that Woodson has had this core group - Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams and the two Joshes - since 2005.
There was a time not so long ago when it seemed the Spirit would have no choice but to fire everybody. Given that Knight is leaving of his own accord, it appears the Spirit will fire nobody. Indeed, the only guy to get canned by this unbelievably patient band of owners - even Bernie Mullin technically “resigned” - is Bob Hartley.
Having a career record of 106-222 is apparently cause for an extension. Losing six in a row to start a season … now that’s a firing offense.
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Who are the true Atlanta Hawks?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thirteen hours after the Hawks made their latest and last return from Boston, they gathered at Philips Arena to clean out lockers and to make sense of what they’d just done. And, more to the point, what they might do.
“We can do something special,” said Josh Smith, who will have to be re-signed for this buzz to linger. “We’ve always been a team at the bottom of the totem pole, but now we’ve been in the playoffs and been successful.”
Here, however, is where it gets tricky. As this suddenly buoyant franchise sails on, does ownership judge the Hawks on what happened over a six-month regular season that ended with the team 37-45, or does it take the stirring events of 15 spring days as the new reality?
“I have not spoken to my [Atlanta Spirit] partners,” said Michael Gearon Jr., speaking by phone Monday, “but we will take a step back for several days and let the emotion settle. And I would not take that statement and conclude that one or the other [meaning general manager Billy Knight or coach Mike Woodson] is gone or will be fired. That is not a foregone conclusion.”
That caveat aside, the guess is that the Spirit will shed Knight and keep Woodson. That belief took root in March, after Knight’s latest attempt to sack Woodson was rebuffed (and made public). If ownership differs with its GM on such an essential matter, what’s the point of keeping him? And, even though Knight has finally constructed a roster of playoff caliber, in-house consensus seems to hold that he took too long to do it.
Woodson is a trickier case. His record (106-222) is a horror, but there’s appreciation for his work within the Spirit. He was given a wretched roster in 2004 and then was handed Marvin and Shelden Williams (as opposed to Chris Paul and Brandon Roy). Through all the losing, he managed not to lose his players. The proof came in the series just completed.
“Woody had his team ready to play,” said Celtics coach Doc Rivers, the erstwhile Hawk. “Even in Games 1 and 2, you could tell they believed they could win.”
The sentimentalist in me would say Woodson deserves to stay for riding out four difficult seasons and keeping his team on the upward trail. Contrary to popular belief, there’s nothing wrong with his X’s and O’s — nobody who played for Bobby Knight and who worked for Larry Brown can be accused of not knowing the game — and his half-court offense is essentially the same as everyone else’s: pick-and-rolls and pin-downs, curls and isolations.
“If the players want me, I’ll be the coach,” Woodson said Monday. “If the owners want me, I’ll be the coach.”
How far away, he was asked, are the Hawks from being a bona fide contender?
“Not far away,” he said. “We’re 13 games from 50 wins. Would 50 wins have gotten a [first-round] homecourt advantage?”
Yes. Forty-six wins would have. And that, as cold-hearted as it might sound, is why the belief here remains as it was 2 1/2 months ago: That Woodson’s Hawks, for all their skill, leave too many winnable games on the table. (Five more regular-season victories and they’d have played Orlando in Round 1.) He had them primed for the playoffs, but what about for January?
“A lot of games slipped away,” Smith said. “We should have been way better.”
There are men available — Avery Johnson, Jeff Van Gundy, perhaps Mike D’Antoni — who could take Woodson’s foundation and dress it up, who would arrive without the baggage of four consecutive losing seasons. The guess, though, is that Gearon and his partners will see it differently.
And if the Hawks perform under Woodson next season as they did in Games 3, 4 and 6, that will be seen as a shrewd decision. But what if, eight months hence, the Hawks are again treading water and we’re hearing the old lament, “We weren’t ready to play”? Will we regard one giddy series as a new beginning … or a false spring?
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Hawks a real team with bright future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boston — Sometimes a game is just too big. Sometimes the opponent is just too good. Sure, it would have been nice if the Hawks could have pushed the Celtics in Game 7, but they’d already pushed the No. 1 seed to the wall. This series ended with a crashing loss, but in the long run it will be seen as a shining victory.
We Atlantans have spent years inventing ways to ignore the Hawks. After the three games in Philips Arena, we can ignore them no longer. They’re a real team again, a real team with a real future.
“I’ve always felt the city wants good basketball,” said Josh Childress, a Hawk since 2004. “Wherever I go, whether it’s the mall or the movies — or the Publix on South Cobb Drive — people say, ‘We’re cheering for you guys.’ It was just a matter of us stepping up to the plate.”
OK, so they sat down in Game 7. They lost by 34 points. They couldn’t muster any offense — they made 15 baskets, five of which were follows or tips, in the first three quarters — and were unprepared for the Celtics’ defensive ferocity. You’d think, having played the C’s six times in the past two weeks, the Hawks would have seen everything their opponent had to offer, but they hadn’t seen how a really good team responds to a Game 7.
They have now. They saw how first Kevin Garnett and then Ray Allen, All-Stars both, dove for the same loose ball with their team leading by 34 points. Or how James Posey, who’d played on an NBA champion with Miami, outhustled Zaza Pachulia to another loose ball a minute later. The Hawks had gotten all the loose balls in the three games in Philips, but not in Game 7. This game simply meant more to the Celtics.
“We didn’t have it today, for some strange reason,” Joe Johnson said, but there was nothing strange about Game 7. The team that had won 29 more games over the regular season prevailed. Relieved Hub fans will now turn their attention to LeBron James and Round 2. We Atlantans, however, shouldn’t forget what we just saw.
“We played a great series,” said Michael Gearon Jr., one of the team’s several owners. “We established some respect for ourselves around the league. Are we disappointed to lose? Absolutely, but it doesn’t take away the direction we’re going, and that’s to be a premier team for a long period of time.”
There are issues, yes. The Hawks should have won more than 37 regular-season games, and this series cast doubt on Mike Bibby as the final answer at point guard. (He was terrible again Sunday, managing one basket and two assists.) Mike Woodson mightn’t be the coach to take this team any higher, and general manager Billy Knight seems to have lost the faith of his employers.
But the bigger picture is far brighter. The Hawks proved they have enough talent to scare the imperial Celtics, and their city proved it’s fully capable of going nuts for good basketball. We weren’t sure of either of those things until now.
Said Woodson: “[The series] definitely changes the perception. … I think our fans like our product, and it really doesn’t get much better than those three games in Atlanta. … Basketball is back in Atlanta in a big way.”
Even as his Celtics put the Hawks — finally! — in the rear-view mirror, their coach was willing to acknowledge the turning of a corner in the city he once called home. Of the Hawks, Doc Rivers said: “They’re a fun team to watch, very similar to us [meaning the Hawks in late 1980s]. If you’re a basketball fan and you were in that arena [meaning Philips], you want to come back.”
Then Rivers said something else: “For this to be a quick series, I thought we had to win Game 3. Because once that athletic team awakened, we were going to have to deal with them.”
After a decade of hard slumber, the Hawks have begun to stir. From here on, we’ll all have to deal with them.
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Game 7 view should be better
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(Editor’s note: This will be Mark Bradley’s live blog from courtside in Boston. Follow his comments as the game unfolds and provide your own thoughts as you watch on TV.)
Boston — Riding on the elevator at the arena this morning, two workers were discussing the series that has extended six days longer than anyone here could have imagined. “They’ve been getting some bad calls,” a guy said.
“Oh, bull,” a lady said. “They’ve been playing horrible.”
They were speaking of the hometown Celtics, who will take part today in what Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe described as “a Game 7 embarrassment.”
Gee. I don’t think the Celtics should feel so bad. The Hawks have a history of being a money team. I think of them as the San Antonio Spurs of the East.
Kidding.
Understand: Nobody pulling for the C’s finds anything funny today. Almost everyone is saying they still expect the No. 1 seed to win - Vegas favors Boston by 14 1/2 points, which has to be a record spread for a Game 7 - but the New England fatalism that once shrouded the Red Sox, who went 86 years between World Series titles, is being transferred to the proud club that has taken 16 NBA championships.
The Hawks, by way of contrast, are in fine spirits. They could even laugh when their second team bus - there’s an early and a later one - backed into the door of the loading dock at TD Banknorth Garden and had to sit on the ramp for 15 minutes. “A typical Celtic trick,” said Arthur Triche, the chief publicist, laughing.
Triche had a trick of his own. In the locker room are two T-shirts bearing the Golden State logo and the words, “We Believe.” They were printed up last spring, as the eighth-seeded Warriors were in the process of toppling No. 1 seed Dallas.
“I made a call to my counterpart at Golden State,” Triche said, “and I said, ‘Send me some of that karma.’ “
Marvin Williams, you should know, has a brace on his knee but said, “I’m pretty sure I will [play].”
And here was Mike Woodson, speaking of his team: “We’ve put ourselves in position to do something really special … [The players] read the paper and hear all the comments being made, and that speaks volumes … I don’t think anybody in that locker room fears that [shock-the-world opportunity].”
One last media note: The Celtics have had to clear their press dining room to provide space for all the national writers who’ve come in to cover the game. And your AJC correspondents have seen their press seats upgraded: For the first three games in Boston, we were along the baseline. Today we’re at midcourt. I’ll let you know which view is better.
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Hawks a dangerous team in Game 7
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(Editor’s note: Mark Bradley will be blogging live during Sunday’s Game 7 from courtside in Boston. Follow his comments as the game unfolds and provide your own thoughts as you watch on TV.)
Boston — Game 6, start of the fourth quarter, Hawks down three: The Celtics knock the ball from Mike Bibby, and the possession seems a botch. But Bibby regains the orb and shovels it to Marvin Williams, the Marvin Williams who has never been Chris Paul and who has rarely been the slightest bit assertive.
And Marvin Williams, wonder of wonders, ducks his head and barges into the lane and lifts an off-balance floater that nonetheless bears the stamp of authority, and the shot drops and a guy sitting half an arena away says to himself, “They’re gonna win.”
The gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe had a song, “Strange Things Happening Every Day.” With the Hawks, stranger things happen every minute. Marvin gets bold and scores 18 points on a night when Joe Johnson manages but two in the first 30 minutes. Josh Childress flies after a Bibby miss at the tail of the third quarter, and the tip hops on the rim once … twice … and drops through after the buzzer.
Al Horford doesn’t play in the second quarter, and the Hawks outscore the NBA’s best team 29-18, getting a massive boost from Zaza Pachulia, recently described in this space as the worst player in the world. What does it say when Zaza, who did next to nothing all season, leaves an imprint on the regal C’s by staring down Kevin Garnett in Game 3 and then scoring nine vital points in Game 6?
And what does it say when the Celtics, inside the final 70 seconds, defend Johnson expertly, James Posey pressuring every dribble and the 6-foot-11 Garnett, the league’s Defensive Player of the Year, swooping as Johnson rises to shoot … and still this killing 3-pointer sails true?
It says the Celtics should be very afraid.
In all of sports, there’s nothing so dangerous as a team that by all rights shouldn’t belong but has convinced itself otherwise. Think of the Braves in September of 1991. Think of the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC tournament. Now think of these Hawks, 37-45 in the regular season but 3-3 against the No. 1 seed in the crucible of postseason play. Think of a team that trailed the Lakers by 41 points in a first half in February scoring on 17 consecutive possessions in May.
“We put it on them to stop us,” Josh Childress said after Game 6, “and they couldn’t do it.”
A franchise that did little right for a decade is doing everything expertly. Mike Woodson is mixing and matching his lineups — he deployed Horford and Pachulia as a tandem in Game 6 and has been using Childress at point guard and has even given Solomon Jones and Acie Law IV key minutes — in an inspired way. Philips Arena, long a friendly venue for visitors, has become a fortress. And the city that made a sport of lampooning the Hawks watches now with equal parts admiration and disbelief. Are these really our blundering Hawks? And do they have any chance in Game 7?
The answers: Yes and yes.
The Celtics will be pilloried forever if they lose Sunday. In the first three games here, the Hawks never gave themselves a chance to make the Green gag. (They haven’t yet won a quarter in TD Banknorth Garden, going 0-for-12.) Should they keep it close today — the belief is that they will — the panic reflex will be triggered in the home side, which was supposed to have won this series a week ago.
In the grand scheme, the Hawks have won already. They have done in one week what they couldn’t do in a decade of wheel-spinning. They’ve become a presence. They’re no longer the Hawks of J.R. Rider and Cal Bowdler, the Hawks who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time; these are the Hawks who have taken the mighty Celtics to the limit, who have risen to their long-deferred moment and bounded beyond.
They’ve taken us on one wild ride, and nothing says it has to end just yet. The Hawks might just pull this off, parquet or no parquet. Strange things are happening every day.
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Hawks stand on cusp of history
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Are you believing this?
You and I mightn’t be. The snooty Celtics surely aren’t. But the Hawks, for reasons unknown and unknowable, act as if they aren’t one bit surprised.
They’re not surprised at having felled the NBA’s best team three times in seven days. They’re not stunned that this psycho series is headed for a Game 7 on Sunday. They’re shocking the world, but they’re not shocked.
“We aren’t the ones who doubted,” Mike Bibby said. “You guys [the media] doubted.”
“Every single person in this locker room,” Josh Childress said, “knew how good we are.”
It was midway through the third quarter of Friday’s Game 6 when the realization began to take hold: The Hawks haven’t just caught a bolt of lightning — they’ve become lightning itself. How else to describe the dizzying sensation of seeing the playoff qualifier with the worst record stare into the face of the league’s stoutest defensive club and score on …
Are you believing this?
Seventeen consecutive possessions.
Seventeen possessions over eight astonishing minutes that saw the Hawks pull from eight points down to two ahead. Boston couldn’t stop them. If they missed a shot, they seized the rebound and scored on a follow. The regal C’s, possessor of a basketball tradition like no other, couldn’t do one single thing to blunt an opponent it was supposed to sweep.
What we’ve seen this last week is a team that has wandered long in the desert find itself at sudden last. What we saw Friday night in a frothing Philips Arena was the No. 8 seed look into the widening eyes of the overwhelming favorite and see weakness and fear.
Like the posse in pursuit of Butch and Sundance — or, if you’re of a more literary bent, Inspector Javert on the heels of Jean Valjean — the newly indomitable Hawks keep coming. And the wear is clearly showing on the older Celtics, who were, after all, supposed to have won this thing in a canter.
They nursed a lead for three quarters in Game 6, but in the end they came unstuck again. Paul Pierce, their captain and leading scorer, fouled out with 4:44 left and got a technical to boot. Even when Boston had a chance to tie inside the final seven seconds, Rajon Rondo seemed not to know how to count. He dribbled forever and finally took a shot that had less chance than Cliff Levingston’s running lefty hook had for the Hawks in that Game 6 against the Celtics 20 years ago.
That Game 6, and the subsequent epic Game 7 loss, marked the crest of the high-bounding Hawks of Dominique and Doc and Spud, the team that could get so far and no further. These new Hawks seem not to recognize any limitations. They say they’ve known all along how good they were, but how could they have known?
“We work hard like everybody else,” Childress said, “and now preparation is meeting opportunity. We’ve got confidence, and with a young team confidence can be a blessing and a curse. Once we get to thinking we can do anything, we do do anything.”
In one careening week a feckless franchise has erased a decade of failure. People who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Hawks game are now packing the arena and wearing white “Shock The World” T-shirts and screaming so loud as to unnerve a visitor that figured it had seen and heard everything.
“It’s definitely a dream,” Josh Smith said. “I was watching ESPN today and people were saying we were going to get knocked out today. We like to keep proving people wrong.”
They’ll get another chance Sunday in Boston. Having already rocked the basketball realm, they stand now on the cusp of history. This was supposed to be the biggest mismatch of the postseason, but these amazing Hawks stand one game from making it the biggest NBA upset ever.
We mightn’t be believing this, but they are. They absolutely are.
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Do the Hawks believe in themselves?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Boston - We’re about to learn if, in their heart of hearts, the Hawks believe they can win this series. They didn’t play like it Wednesday night. They lost by 25 points and afterward Josh Smith said, “Other than giving up some offensive rebounds, this doesn’t disappoint me because we still played hard. We continued to fight ever though the game was out of reach.”
Granted, this playoff thing is all new for these Hawks. But the idea at this time of year isn’t to play hard. The idea is to win no matter what it takes. There’s money and prestige on the table: It’s a given that nobody’s going to loaf.
If the Hawks still believe they can take this, they’ll win Game 6 and come back for Game 7 on Sunday. Having lost three times here already, it’s hard to imagine that a fourth time would be any different, but you never know. Any given Sunday and all that…
But here’s the cold reality: The Hawks are, counting the playoffs, 12-32 on the road; they haven’t yet won a quarter in TD Banknorth Garden this postseason, let alone a game; Mike Bibby, who’s supposed to be the seasoned pro, has had three consecutive two-baskets-and-one-assist road games. There’s nothing in any of that to offer much hope.
Then again, there wasn’t much hope entering a series against a team that won 29 more games than they did, and the Hawks managed to take two from Boston in Philips Arena. As impressive as the Celtics were Wednesday night, they still have to win once more.
Imagine if they find themselves back here for a Game 7 against a sub-.500 opponent and the score is tight with five minutes to play. Imagine the pressure on them then.
In three games here, the Hawks haven’t yet applied such heat. They’ve been out of it almost from the start. But it only takes one road win to steal a series if you hold serve at home. We’ll see Friday if the young Hawks believe strongly enough to give themselves that chance.
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