AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > January > 10
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Desperate for help in the paint
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The scene of the Hawks’ latest crime against basketball was somehow still standing after Tuesday night’s pounding of the Conseco Fieldhouse glass with shots, most of which, never came close to going into the hoop.
If that sounds a bit harsh, it should. I’m writing this moments after the Hawks’ 91-72 loss to the Pacers (and Al Harrington, whose mission in life is now to never lose another game to his beloved Hawks).
People keep asking me how I watch this team struggle night after night like this. And I’ll admit, it’s not always the easiest thing to do. (You trying to come up with 50-60 something ways to say a team lost and not sounds like a broken record). But if I couldn’t see any progress at all, it would be easy to bury these cats every night. I mean, no one expects much from these cats. And there are nights that, as young and impressionable as some of these Hawks are, they let that defeatist attitude engulf them on the floor.
The Pacers, a great team on paper but far from that on the floor, didn’t have Naismith dancing in the sky Tuesday night either (they shot 42 percent from the floor and turned it over three more times than the Hawks did).
The telling stat for me is always points in the paint (it’s not always the tell all stat but most nights it’s the best indicator of what happened). If the Hawks get smashed there, it usually means they got roasted on the scoreboard. And it was 50-24 in the Pacers’ favor Tuesday night.
We spent all of last season talking about it and I mentioned it here in the preseason (to mixed reviews), but I’ll say it again, the Hawks have to get some help inside or they’ll continue to be abused in the paint.
There has to be an inside-out dynamic to a team. There has to be an inside threat. And on the nights when Zaza Pachulia is effective, the results are obvious (he and Joe Johnson were a perfect 1-2 punch in that win over the Clippers).
On the nights when he doesn’t have it going, the Hawks are in for a serious pounding. Jeff Foster (yet another trade piece from our summer conversations, and for all you Einstein’s who blasted me for saying he was what the Hawks needed, dude had 17 rebounds!) was a man amongst boys inside. The Pacers’ All-Star big man, Jermaine O’Neal, had pedestrian numbers (10 points, eight rebounds) and they still rocked the Hawks inside.
I don’t think I’m overstating the obvious here, either. And I certainly don’t understand how anyone could argue that this Hawks team, even at optimum health, could fare much better against the quality teams in the league. Sure, they have some talented young pieces. But not enough of the quality veteran types (Clippers journeyman Aaron Williams looked like another member of the just-what-the-doctor-ordered-for-the-Hawks crew Saturday night) that will help prevent you from being smacked around the way the Hawks were by the Pacers.
