AJC > Sports > Hawks > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 08
Monday, October 8, 2007
Unleash the Cracken!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ORLANDO - That’s my favorite line from one of my favorite, campy 80s movies of all time (if you haven’t seen Clash of the Titans you are truly missing out on a treasure of American cinema).
It’s also the only thing I can think of that captures what I need to see tonight when the Hawks and Magic go at it. I need to see these Hawks unleashed to really believe in their much-hyped up-tempo attack.
The first week of training can be a mirage sometimes. Things you think you’ve seen really aren’t there. And something that you never expected shows up when the real games start. Tonight’s exhibition opener qualifies as a “real” game, albeit one that doesn’t actually count - go figure.
So the skeptic in me is yearning to see the Hawks’ running game in action. I understand, as some of you pointed out last week, that it’s not an every second of every game thing. The smart teams pick and choose their opportunities to push the pace.
But in order to do that there has to be some chemistry on the floor. There has to be a discipline involved with running that is directly related to the way a team plays defense and collectively rebounds the basketball.
I don’t know that we’ve seen those links work together in the past. They have to be working tonight against an Orlando team, while welcoming a new coach and several new faces, was a playoff squad last year.
They’ll push the Hawks tonight because they have some things to work out of their own, namely how these guys fit in Stan Van Gundy’s system. And there’s never a bad night to see Dwight Howard in action (who isn’t curious to see if Rashard Lewis fits here?), especially against his hometown team.
This opening test, against a division rival, is an ideal one for the Hawks. That said, I couldn’t care less about which team wins or loses, since we all know these games are often filled with the backups and roster fillers by the end.
It’s the moments in between that will allow us to see if this team has the makings of the playoff contender they believe themselves to be (every huddle at the end of practice finishes with a “1-2-3 Playoffs!”) and their most ardent supporters are convinced they are.
I’m still on the fence on that one. I have to see more. And it starts with what I see tonight.
