AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2006 > April > 05
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Going and going and going
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I told Josh Smith this last night after the two-point loss to New Jersey at Continental Airlines Arena and I meant it sincerely, this Hawks team is the most hilariously entertaining basketball team I’ve seen in years. They’re funny because they’ve truly convinced themselves that they should win every single game they play. No matter how many points they get down, no matter how many guys they don’t have in uniform and no matter who they play, they think they should win.
The hilarious part is that long before now a team with 22 wins would normally realize their fate and put it on cruise control for the last month of the season. The Hawks, the world’s most stubborn basketball team, refuse.
They outscored the Nets 37-18 in the fourth quarter with a rag-tag lineup of Esteban Batista, Anthony Grundy, Donta Smith, Smith and a flu-filled Joe Johnson playing their guts out the entire way. The Nets fans breathing down my neck gave the Hawks a standing ovation at the end of the game. (I thought they were cheering their team but a kind gentleman informed me that any team with that many guys he’d never heard of that played that hard deserved some love.)
How JJ continues to come up with these performances (after scoring five points on 2-for-12 shooting in Memphis he comes up with a game-high 33 on 12-17 shooting, including, 3-for-4 from long distance) boggles the mind. His body should be on empty by now. He should be resting his bones and getting ready for vacation April 20. But he’s still going and going and going.
As impressive as Donta Smith was (four dunks and a clutch 3-pointer), it was Josh Smith that struck me. He struggles from the floor but counters wtih 12 rebounds, eight assists, three blocks (I counted at least six but he was only credited with three) on the night he snatched sole possession of ninth place on the franchise blocked shots list (323), surpassing Antoine Carr.
Then there’s Tyronn Lue, playing on a still tender knee, who dishes out seven assists (one shy of his season high) in just his second game back from a two-month stint on the bench with a sprained knee ligament.
They played with nine healthy guys. Nine!
What they’ll have in the tank tonight against Minnesota will be interesting to see.
We whack people around here all the time, and most of the time it’s well earned. But I have to commend these guys and the coaches in particular. Because if he can convince these guys to buy into whatever it is he’s selling, he needs his own informercial.
