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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > June > 13
Friday, June 13, 2008
Former Hawks rule basketball universe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Even at their apex, the Hawks of old had to fight perception. During their titanic 1988 playoff series against Boston, assistant coach Brendan Suhr told Jack McCallum of Sports Illustrated: “We all know what people think of when they think of the Hawks. They think of a jivin’, high-fivin’, low-IQ team.”
Twenty years later, one of those Hawks (Doc Rivers) is a coach on the cusp of a championship. Randy Wittman, Rivers’ backcourt partner from 1983 through 1988, coaches the Minnesota Timberwolves. Tree Rollins, a distinguished Hawk from 1977 through 1988, coaches the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. And Reggie Theus, imported as a presumed upgrade to Wittman in the summer of ‘88, coaches the Sacramento Kings.
For a team supposedly short on brainpower, that’s an auspicious array of alums. Said Rollins, who played under Hubie Brown, Kevin Loughery and Mike Fratello as a Hawk: “You had to have a high basketball IQ to execute the things we ran.”
Said Fratello, the NBA’s coach of the year in 1985-86 and now the famed Czar of TNT’s Telestrator: “We were not low-IQ. We were sometimes impatient, but that was because we were young. With the number of things we put in, we couldn’t have done it with a low-IQ team.”
Something you didn’t know: Even in an era where 95 percent of contemporary basketball seems based in the pick-and-roll, coaches and their players still reference the Hawks of yore. “Most teams still run what they call a ‘Hawk Set’ or a ‘Hawk Cut,’ ” Rollins said. “It’s something they got from our old ‘5’ set.”
In separate conversations, Rollins and Fratello offered an oral diagram: The center (or the power forward, depending on personnel) sets a high screen for the point guard, who’s moving left to right. Fratello, in full Telestrator mode, noted that the screener’s “chest angle” is of paramount importance. “He almost has to be facing the sideline, and he has to look back over his left shoulder to see the guard. … We always ran it to the right side of the court.”
The 2-guard posts his man low on the right side. The power forward (or center, again depending) “sets a pin for the 3-man,” Rollins said, and the 3-man for the Hawks of the middle and late ’80s was Jacques Dominique Wilkins. The “5” play could have culminated with one of several men taking the shot — the high screen stepping backward and receiving a pass; the point guard driving; the 2-guard posting up or fading to the sideline — but usually it wound up with No. 21 in the left corner. “And then we got out of Dominique’s way,” said Rollins, laughing.
If you’re so inclined, you could find this play in the still-available paperback, “Hubie On Basketball — Book 1.” Fratello, who was Brown’s assistant when the book was being readied for publication, recalled that there was never a Book 2: “I did 109 diagrams by hand, and finally Hubie came in and said, ‘That’s it — we’re done. This is too much work.’”
Twenty years later, we see that there was more to those Hawks than we would have guessed. Even Cliff Levingston, author of the infamous (and unscripted) running lefty hook at the deflating end of Game 6 against the Celtics, has served as head coach of the St. Louis Flight of the ABA and the Dodge City Legend, the Gary Steelheads and the Oklahoma Cavalry of the USBL.
“I have a lot of pride in those people,” said Fratello, a proud godfather of professional coaching. “I couldn’t be happier for them.”
Said Rollins: “I see these guys all the time, and we always talk basketball. I saw Maurice Cheeks [briefly a Hawk in 1992 and now coach of the Philadelphia 76ers] in the airport the other day, and I got a play for my point guard.”
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