AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 01
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Where do they go from here?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CHOCOLATE CITY - (Pardon the dateline, but that’s what I always remember my parents calling Washington D.C., and if you’ve ever been here you know they got it right.)
The train wreck that has become the Hawks’ season after the All-Star break (1-5 and counting) makes its next stop here Friday night at Verizon Center, where Gilbert “Agent 0” Arenas and his Washington Wizards crew await the NBA’s favorite dinner guest of the past two weeks.
(I have to admit that it’s strange knowing that the Hawks-Wizards game will be played Friday night, hours after the feuding owners will have tipped off and finished their latest round of sparring. None of it supposed to be related, of course. The players are supposed to be immune to whatever goes on in a courtroom 90 minutes away. But I’ve always struggled with that theory and will continue to do so until the entire mess is resolved and this team is allowed to operate without that mushroom cloud of nonsense hanging over everything they do.)
That said, there can be no excuses made for the Hawks’ recent on-court shortcomings than to point out that they’re just not getting done. Ten home wins this late in the season is an absolute disaster. The Hawks only have 10 more road games. Even if they break even on the remaining home games that’s a 17-24 home mark for the season. That won’t work for a fundamentally flawed team trying to make a postseason run (it’s getting to the point that the mere mention of the playoffs and postseason is just a cruel joke for fans whose hope have been dashed at every turn. I’m sorry.)
So the only question that remains is where do the Hawks go from here?
I can’t see them totally falling apart down the stretch. They’ve been too resilient all season to fold up now. But (despite Lorenzen Wright giving the me the business in the locker room before Wednesday’s game for saying out loud) the Hawks’ making the postseason is a pipe dream.
If ever there was a time for Hawks coach Mike Woodson and his staff to heap some pressure and playing time on the shoulders of some the team’s role players (Solomon Jones, Salim Stoudamire, Shelden Williams and even Esteban Batista come to mind), that time is now.
Check my thinking here and tell me if you agree. With the season in the balance and these guys needing validation of the work they’ve put in since training camp, I think they need to be forced to be accountable for what’s going on. They need to feel like whatever they do, even if it’s in a two-minute stretch, has a profound impact on the outcome of games. Something that seems that insignificant could actually be what gets this team over the proverbial hump in the coming weeks. And I think a perfect example of that is the way the Hornets have incorporated their bench crew into their playoff run.
Granted, the Hornets have more experienced players in similar roles. But I was struck at the quality minutes they got from the likes of Marc Jackson, Bobby Jackson, Linton Johnson, Jannero Pargo, Rasual Butler and even rookie Hilton Armstrong. It’s not the amount of minutes they played but the quality of those minutes. Only two of those guys (Pargo and Butler) actually scored points. But they gave the starters a little breather that proved invaluable late in the game, allowing Chris Paul and his crew to play with a burst of energy Joe Johnson and his crew couldn’t match during crunch time.
This is also where I think the coaching staff has made a valid point that is being overlooked by not only some of the players but also the rest of us (fans, media, etc.). Those minutes have to be earned the old fashioned way. Those role players should make practice a shootout every day. Every possession of every scrimmage and every drill should be so hotly contested that everyone leaves the floor better because of the intensity that was applied by the role players.
It’s just a theory of mine, though, the result of having far too much time to analyze such things I suppose.
