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November 2008
Just another wild Saturday night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Washington — The second quarter just got underway over and already the craziness has started.
Josh Smith, who is not playing despite insisting before the game that he feels like he’s ready to go, just got a technical foul for arguing with referee Marc Davis (who apparently didn’t appreciate having to argue with a guy in a suit not named Mike Woodson).
Solomon Jones has more blocks (3) than points (2) and has the Wizards cautious around the basket like they would be if Smith was playing.
The Hawks started the game 4-for-4 from beyond the 3-point line, their favorite new toy this season (The Hawks’ .417 3-point percentage leads the league).
And the cheers for every made Hawks basket are almost as loud as the cheers for a made basket by the Wizards.
All this, and I haven’t even gotten to my latest intel on a trade rumor that Ray brought to my attention between bites of Turkey, dressing and sweets on Thanksgiving.
And you thought this was going to be just another lazy Saturday night.
“Did this dude seriously just give a technical to a guy that’s not even playing,” a fan near me above the tunnel said. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Not me. Seen it before. At Philips Arena about five or six years ago when Joey Crawford slapped Reggie Miller with two quickies while he was on the bench (in uniform) and tossed him from a game.
But enough about thin-skinned officials and their foolish antics.
It’s time to talk trade rumors. Ray brought to my attention a bit mentioned in a Yahoo! Sports story involving conversations the Hawks supposedly had with Portland about moving Mike Bibby for players that were not identified.
Apparently the story suggested that the Hawks were hot and heavy in talks and then decided to relax after their hot start.
The conversation (and keep in mind that GMs around the league are constantly discussing the possibilities, so I have no reason to be skeptical about the idea that some sort of conversation took place) had to have included the Hawks getting back not only another point guard, but also another young big that could have helped with their depth.
It makes you wonder what else might be out there in NBA Tradeland (a dangerous place to live when your team is above .500 and has the look of a legitimate playoff contender in spite of a significant injury in the first couple weeks of the season).
Bibby said before Saturday’s game that news of a potential deal never made it to his ears. “What the hell is Yahoo Sports?” he said before breaking into his comedy routine about the media. “That’s news to me Sekou. I never heard anything like that … you and the rest of the damn media always making stuff up.”
The way they’re playing right now, the Hawks would have to think long and hard about moving Bibby or anyone else, unless it was a totally one-sided deal that added an All-Star caliber talent (and for the record, Bibby is shooting the lights out of the Verizon Center right now).
A first month shakeup in years past always seemed to breathe a little life into things around here. Now it would seem like tinkering for the sake of tinkering. And that’s not what these Hawks need.
They need to get healthy and get to that December home stretch and see if they can’t create a little space between the numbers in the win column compared to the number in the loss column. By the end of December these Hawks should have a much better handle on just who and what they are and what it is they need to get better in the short and long run.
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When is Josh Smith coming back?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that in the past two weeks, I’d take us all out for steak dinners and pick up the bill.
People ask me in hallways at Philips Arena, the Publix on Paces Ferry and Cumberland Parkway (the hottest hangout spot in town for family guys, ha!), in bathrooms (enough already), at the barbershop and in line the bank.
Scouts from other teams ask all the time, in the press room and even on flights; one did during take off Saturday on the way to Cleveland, wanting to know if Smith would be back in time for the game against his team this week.
My answer is always the same, “I honestly don’t know.”
(And for the record, Smith is expected back sometime next week at best.)
If it were up to Smith he’d have been back six games ago. But that high ankle sprain he suffered Nov. 7 in a win over Toronto has done more to ground the Hawks’ high-flying defensive effort than anything an opposing team has done.
He wants back on the floor for Wednesday’s Thanksgiving Eve tilt with Milwaukee. Hawks coach Mike Woodson says it’s not happening. Or at least that’s what he said before the Cavaliers ransacked his team Saturday night.
But no one could blame him for allowing Smith an early return. Because the Hawks need a jolt of energy in the worst way right now. They had to work so hard to fend off the Bobcats at home Friday night that I knew they’d have trouble in Cleveland - and I knew that even if they played well from the start (which, of course, they did not) they’d struggle with the Cavs because LeBron’s crew is sp big and physical and would force the issue inside, where the Hawks are most vulnerable right now.
The Bucks will pose a similar challenge, as will the Raptors Friday night in Toronto.
The worst kept secret right now in the scouting world is that the Hawks are tender in the middle. Teams aren’t even masking their intent, going at the Hawks’ head from the start of games hoping to force Al Horford into early foul trouble and therefore forcing the Hawks into playing their reserves for extended minutes (music to the ears of the likes of James, Chris Bosh and others frontcourt starts of their ilk).
I asked a scouting friend how one guy could make such a huge difference defensively if he’s never included on the list of All-Defensive teams and roundly criticized for being a shot blocker but not a good overall defender (criticism I think is not only trivial but totally off base)?
He raised some interesting points with his response.
“The thing with Josh is he’s a gambler,” my scout friend said. “He’s always baiting people into shots that he can block or alter and that’s what makes him so effective. It’s also what drives coaches nuts, because it’s something they can’t control or coach him to do. And that frightens most coaches. I think it’s one reason he doesn’t get the respect he deserves as a defender and one reason why he’s always left out of the conversation of the best defenders in the league. But if you look at them without him out there, patrolling the baseline and protecting that rim, they’re a totally different team. They couldn’t even stop friggin Rasho [Nesterovic] and [Troy] Murphy [in Indiana last week]. So that tells you just how much they are struggling right now. The other thing is, when you have a shot blocker back there, guys who aren’t great defenders but really put forth a lot of effort to play defense look a whole lot better. When that shot blocker isn’t there, those other guys can’t hide. I can’t lie, Smith drives me crazy. I’m not a gambler. But I promise you, if he played for us, we’d build the entire defensive scheme around him. He not only blocks shots but he intimidates guys. I was at a game last season when he had Boston so worried about where he was on defense that it kept them out of rhythm for the entire first half. There aren’t many guys in the league that can do that.”
All that said, I don’t think Smith answers all of the Hawks’ defensive questions - there has to be someone that can come in as a defensive bulldog on opposing point guards, either Acie Law IV or Mario West, even if it’s just for brief stretches to knock the opposing team off balance momentarily.
But there’s no question the Hawks will get a major lift when Smith returns. When that is … well, just ask me next time you see me.
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Vivica not Halle!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - If Wednesday night’s game against Washington was the Hawks’ gut-check moment, give them credit, they answered the challenge.
Marvin Williams made sure of it. So did Mike Bibby. And Zaza Pachulia and, of course, Joe Johnson, Mo Evans, Flip Murray and on and on.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty by any stretch, scrapping to beat a one-win team at home never is. But it was what the Hawks needed most.
Had their four-game losing streak continued, the doubts that are swirling about this team here and elsewhere might have permeated the locker room. And internal doubt can destroy a team’s chemistry faster and more decisively than anything.
Now that the sweet smell of that 6-0 start has dissipated, it’s time for Hawks fans to prepare yourselves for exactly what type of team you have, and I was trying to think about an analogy that would work to illustrate this next point.
Basically, you thought you were dating Halle Berry the first six games and now you realize you’re actually dating Vivica A. Fox, and not Independence Day Vivica but Vivica circa Nov. 20, 2008. And it’s not like Vivica isn’t fly. But she’s not exactly Halle (I know you’ve seen her on the Esquire cover so you know what I’m talking about), not exactly who you thought you were with. So the adrenaline isn’t exactly pumping the way it was early on, when you thought you hit the jackpot.
The same goes for these Hawks. They are going to win with smothering defense and opportunistic offense, by grinding out games and sticking to their core theme of defense and rebounding. They’re not going to be like the Suns’ high-flying teams of the past few seasons. They’re not going to dazzle anyone with their style and grace. It won’t always look good. Winning will simply have to do.
Those of us watching from TV last night (thanks to Carroll Rogers I had a day to recharge my battery) saw a weary team, one that lacked energy as well as confidence for most of the night. After watching them and then watching Portland and Chicago later, and seeing how much more energetic the Blazers looked compared to the Hawks (and Bulls for that matter), it was stunning.
And yet, when they needed to, the Hawks found a way to dig out the win (battling back from four points down with 65 seconds to play to pull it out). Again, it’s not pretty, but the job gets done. And for these Hawks, it’s the results that count.
So forget about Halle and start focusing on Vivica.
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Not another one
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
INDIANAPOLIS - Every team is always just one injury away from the danger zone in the NBA. That’s the prhase tossed around frequently in NBA circles.
The Hawks probably thought they’d already dealt with their big injury blow of this early season when Josh Smith went down with a high ankle sprain two weeks ago against Toronto.
But things took a sinister turn here Tuesday night when Al Horford sprained his right ankle with just over five minutes to play in the first quarter against Indiana at Conseco Fieldhouse.
He limped to the locker room where he was examined (the ankle was x-rayed and there was no determination made about the severity of the injury) and stayed in the locker room icing his ankle for the rest of the game.
The prospect of playing for a half, let alone any extended period of time without both Smith and Horford has to be a frightening one for the Hawks, whose interior defense has been non-existent here tonight.
Things just got really interesting for these Hawks. We’re going to see what kind of fight these birds have without their two young guns.
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What goes up …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - In the NBA it’s always inevitable.
What goes up always comes down.
And in the Hawks case, that would be not only their overall performance but also their defensive intensity.
After stifling teams with their defense for six games and most of a seventh (in Boston), the bottom fell out in back-to-back losses to New Jersey.
While the Hawks argued the contrary, I saw guys who looked worn slap out. I saw guys who pushed themselves to play at such a high level (with little regard for what might be on the horizon schedule-wise beyond Boston, a tact I had no problem with then and none now), that they simply ran out of gas in their back-to-back road and home set with the Nets.
It happens to teams that aren’t used to playing at a ridiculously high level all the time, and this is definitely something new for the Hawks.
Having witnessed a team have one of those magical 60-win seasons before (the Pacers piled up 61 wins one year I worked in Indiana), I realized after that just how disciplined a team has to be to carry out a season like that.
In retrospect, the consistency of the performances is what was so remarkable about that Pacers team.
There weren’t any wild shifts in how they played. They never had a streak where they stalled on either end of the floor and couldn’t self-start themselves (they also avoided major injury to their core players, had near perfect symmetry between their starters and bench rotation players, player perfectly off of their defensive ton-setter, one Ron Artest, and rode a wave of confidence from training camp all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals - where they fell to the eventual champion Detroit Pistons - that they have not been able to recapture since). Most important, though, is that they were self-starters. They had a coaching staff that inherited them the summer before that season, so their motivation was already internalized.
That’s why it’s so important for these Hawks to dig out of their current, mini-rut the same way they reeled off those six straight wins (over mostly big-time competition). They have to return to the defensive-minded, ball-sharing approach that led to their initial success.
They trusted each other to make plays, on both ends of the floor, without fail during that 6-0 spurt. Now that they’ve had a couple of hiccups (there’s no shame in losing to Boston the way they did, but there’s also no excuse for being waxed by Jersey the way they were either), we’re going to see if they’ll trust each other when things aren’t going their way.
Of course, the Hawks won’t get Josh Smith (their defensive tone-setter) back this week or possibly the next, so there won’t be any immediate infusion of energy into the ranks to help solve the Hawks’ defensive crisis. So it will have to be a group effort to recharge their defensive principles (Mike Woodson favors a few practice days, as you might have read in today’s paper).
Like I said, what goes up in the NBA always comes down.
But it can always crank back up again, which is what the Hawks need to do between now and Thanksgiving in order to preserve the tone set during their 6-0 start.
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Ratings gold!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NEW YORK - Apparently we’re not the only ones that love to watch the Hawks and Celtics go at it.
(The Hawks-Celtics Game 8 battle Wednesday did a jaw-dropping 6.73 for the last quarter hour, 10:15 to 10:30, and the game ended with just under 4 (3.9) overall, to be adjusted later since the rating times are pre-set and the game ran long - per a celebrated longtime announcer friend of mine who knows about these things. A 6.7 rating for even a piece of a Hawks game in November, or any other time, is off the charts. “Astronomical,” to borrow his word. Last season’s playoff games came in at 2.)
The rematch between last year’s playoff combatants drew record numbers in Beantown as well.
My man Weez-E sent me a link from Boston this morning that reads like this:
“A year ago a game between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks was hardly worth a second look. On Wednesday night, the telecast of the postseason rematch was the highest rated regular season game in Comcast SportsNet history.
The final half hour, which included Paul Pierce’s game-winning heroics, was the top rated program on Boston television, beating out network hits such as House and Law & Order. The game drew an estimated 245,000 households in New England and 163,000 in the Boston market alone.”
And to think that this game couldn’t find its way onto the NBA’s national TV schedule … sad.
I hate to dwell on the past, but the best rivalry going right now in the Eastern Conference isn’t the Piston-Cavaliers or Celtics-Pistons. It’s these Hawks and Celtics.
WHAT RIVALRY?: Of course, Celtics superstar Kevin Garnett doesn’t agree with that sentiment. Even while praising the Hawks, he denounced their current drama as a rivalry.
“It’s definitely entertaining, two teams playing hard,” Garnett told reporters after the game. “You definitely see the growth in that team. They have some key additions. Mo Evans played hard for them. Flip Murray is a big addition for them. It gives them a lot more depth. Joe Johnson and Mike Bibby have some other scorers that can come in. Like Paul said, we knew this wasn’t going to be an easy game. They weren’t undefeated for any other reason. The thing that sticks out is that they’re a lot more defensively sound than they were a year ago. It’s entertaining but I wouldn’t necessarily call it a rivalry.”
Uh, whatever you say KG. I don’t know what constitutes a rivalry in South Carolina or Chicago (KG claims both), but where I’m from (Grand Rapids, MI) what’s gone on between the Hawks and Celtics the past seven months is the definition of a rivalry.
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Not that the Hawks need to spend any more time worrying about the Celtics with a back-to-back trap set against New Jersey standing between them and their seventh and potentially eighth wins of the season.
While studying the Hawks’ schedule during the summer, I came up with a plan that I felt would give them the best chance to chase their playoff goals.
With 10 of their first 16 games on the road, it seems reasonable that the Hawks would need to reach eight wins as quickly as possible to keep themselves in a good position heading into a December stretch that will see them play eight straight home games (a veritable gold mine for a good team hoping to build up its war chest for the second half of the season).
The Hawks are closer to that goal than I predicted they’d be just seven games in. So there is a real opportunity to fortify their position right now with another strong burst with three back-to-back sets between now and next Saturday.
“All we’re worried about is Jersey for the next [48 hours],” Marvin Williams said in reference to tonight’s game at Izod Center and Saturday’s return tilt at Philips Arena. “We don’t see the Celtics again until next month, so we’ll worry about them then. Right now, we’re locked in on Jersey and then we’ll just keep going from there.”
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Deja Vu
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BOSTON - There’s a chill in the air around the harbor.
The Celtics and Hawks are set to get it on.
Haven’t we done this before?
Al Horford’s already on the bench with two fouls and Flip Murray already has nine points, the Hawks led 31-24 at the end of the first quarter.
So we know Game 8 of this intense rivalry won’t go like Game 7.
It’s weird in here, the Celtics look the same and everything, but they’re not playing at the same fever pitch they were the last time we were here.
The Hawks, on the other hand, certainly seem like a different bunch. Maybe it’s the 6-0 record. Or maybe it’s as simple as Flip and Mo Evans being here. It’s hard to tell right now.
Let’s see where this thing goes from here …
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WOW!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CHICAGO - What else can you say?
Take your bow Al Horford.
You’ve only got about six or seven hours to bask in the glow of one of the most fantastic basketball showcases I’ve seen in the past 14 years of being in this profession (tonight’s game at Boston couldn’t have a better build up if Aaron Sorkin had scripted it).
If you missed the second-year Hawks center’s virtuoso performance in Tuesday night’s win here over Chicago, then I feel for you.
Because it was a one-of-a-kind performance.
With their star player struggling (Joe Johnson was 4-for-16 for the second straight game), his partner in crime back home (Josh Smith’s high ankle sprain kept him from making this road trip) and playing in a building the Hawks hadn’t won in since Horford was walking the hall of Grand Ledge High School, a young star was reborn (those Rookie of the Year votes people handed to Kevin Durant last year need to be recounted).
“He had a monster game,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said in the understatement of the century after the Hawks’ 113-108 win over the Chicago Bulls at United Center.
How about one of the most “monster” games these eyes have ever seen.
The career-high 27 points, 17 rebounds, six blocks, three assists and steal don’t do justice to the effort Horford gave on this night.
He was quite simply a man among boys, like a young Karl Malone having his way around the basket.
I’ll stop with the craziness here shortly. But I have to admit, it’s not often that you watch a guy work and wonder if he knows that he realizes he’s taken his game to another level.
So I walked into the Hawks’ locker room after the game and glanced at Horford with one eye squeezed together.
“What’s good?” he asked.
“It looks like you,” I said before we both busted out laughing.
There were no ulterior motives for Horford in this one, though I’m sure he liked smashing on Joakim Noah and Tyrus Thomas, two of his contemporaries in college and now the NBA.
He simply understood that the Hawks hadn’t won in years in the house Michael Jordan built. He knew a job needed to be done and he rose to occasion in a fashion reserved for only the special players.
You’ve seen it from Johnson (countless times), Smith (remember Games 3 and 4 against the Celtics in the playoffs), Bibby (in Sacramento a zillion times and some Tuesday night with his ruthless four, fourth-quarter 3-point daggers) and now Horford.
This was his night. He owned it from the start and he never let up, not even for a second.
“I thought he was going to get 40, 40 and 10 blocks,” Marvin Williams said smiling. “I looked up early and he already had 16 points, six rebounds and four blocks and thought I was seeing double. That was crazy.”
Again, if you missed it, I feel for you.
Because it was a sight to see Horford work like that and then act like he hadn’t done anything special afterwards.
“Al can pass, he can score, he plays defense and he can …” Bibby said from his chair after the game, “he’s a hard man to stop.”
Tuesday night was mission impossible for the poor Bulls.
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Flip the script
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OKLAHOMA CITY - Since I had a better chance of bumping into the ghost of Ed O. Kelly than an actual person here after the Hawks’ win over the Thunder Sunday night, I thought I’d reach out to a few old friends from back home (that would be you!).
Are you having as tough a time trying to figure out these Hawks as I am?
I understand the 5-0 thing. I’ve been in attendance for all of those. It’s all been earned folks, in every way imaginable. It’s real.
The scouting report should read something like this:
“Tough team. Defensive minded. Resilient. Shares the ball. Plays at whatever pace necessary. Athletic. Active on both ends of the floor. And confident as ever, particularly down the stretch and surprisingly, on the road.”
What I don’t fully understand right now is where this vibe came from, and make no mistake about it these Hawks are in a serious groove, a big time groove, right now.
Still, I didn’t see any of this coming when the Hawks finished up that playoff series in Boston last spring.
As late as the first of August this team appeared to be in danger of losing all of the momentum generated in that series, what with so many loose ends still to be tied up.
Yet, a little over four months later we are watching one of the hottest teams in the league work every night. It’s honestly a bit mind-boggling to think how far this team has come since the trade deadline last season.
Someone flipped the script somewhere along the way (and boy has Flip Murray been everything the Hawks needed and more so far).
Go ahead and can the 82-0 dream, by the way, because we all know it’s not happening. But even if the Hawks were 4-1, 3-2 or even 2-3, the improvement in this team is evident (even the perpetual haters can’t deny that).
I mean, when was the last time you heard opposing coaches talking about the Hawks the way Toronto coach Sam Mitchell did the other night (“There wasn’t anything we could do to stop Atlanta,” he said. “We couldn’t guard them. We have to bring more intensity to the defensive end if we’re going to compete against teams like the Hawks. They are an up and coming team, and we have to bring more energy to compete with them, especially on their floor.”)?
I’ve been torn trying to figure out how much of the responsibility belongs to the players and coaches (the bulk of it), how much belongs to the former GM and his crew, Billy Knight and his gang, for assembling the core of this group (some of it certainly) and how much belongs to the current GM and his crew, Rick Sund and his team, for implementing their program quickly and putting the final roster pieces in place (plenty of it as well)?
Mike Woodson and his staff have responded fantastically to the regime change, smoothing out the transition for everyone by diving back into the task at hand and acting like the dysfunction that infected the place most of last season never existed.
And the players have eased into a playoff-style rhythm early on without missing a beat, even when one of their key members (Josh Smith) goes down with an injury that could keep him for as many as 15 games.
Sund and his staff (and there were several holdovers from Knight’s staff, so the credit should actually be spread even more) have to be credited with coming in with a critical eye and zeroing in on the specific needs of this team with the additions of Murray and Mo Evans, particularly. So much of filling out a roster is doing your homework on players and knowing how they’ll fit into your program and how they’ll mesh with the talent already in place.
It’s a delicate dance. And things have to work in concert or the type of start the Hawks have gotten off to wouldn’t even be a remote possibility.
And I say all this with something interesting Sund mentioned to me the day I first met him, the day after he accepted the GM job, in a hotel room in Florida still on the brain.
He talked of the marathon that is a NBA season, and how important it is to remember that the measure of a team can’t be taken (good or bad) just a week, or two or a even a month into this thing.
Inevitably the same cosmic wave a team rides to 5-0 (or more) will crash at some point and that same team will live through a stretch on the flip side. That’s just the reality of what we’re dealing with. And that’s sound advice from a man who has seen his fair share of NBA starts (good and bad) in nearly 35 years of action in the league.
But after years of looking for goats around here, it might be time to start dishing out a little praise (even if it is still early) for jobs well done.
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So much for the sneak attack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NEW ORLEANS - The Hawks won’t be sneaking up on anyone this season.
Not after a 3-0 start that includes impressive wins in Orlando and New Orleans, Wednesday night’s win over the Hornets here registering an 8.5 on the jaw-drop scale.
And not after they wiped out a 23-point deficit in their home opener to thump a Philadelphia team forecasted to push its way into the top four in the Eastern Conference.
I almost feel a little a foolish now for warning all of you to worry so much about the Hawks’ early season schedule. Sure, they still have a ways to go. But if they travel the next 16 games anything like they have these first three, there’s no need to fret.
They’re doing it with defense, doing it together and doing it without a hint f smoke and mirrors.
Go ahead and pinch yourself, folks, these Hawks might actually be for real.
If you don’t believe me, check out the reaction of the Hornets after Wednesday’s game.
“They just beat us up,” Hornets All-Star point guard Chris Paul said. “We thought we could just turn it on whenever we got ready … they were just the better team than us.”
Hornets coach Byron Scott wasn’t nearly as diplomatic regarding his own team, paying the Hawks a huge compliment along the way.
“They played harder than we did,” Scott said. “They were more aggressive, more physical. The M.O. of our team from last year was ‘beat them up,’ and that’s basically what they did. They took liberties against us and we took a step back because we accepted it instead of fighting fire with fire. Sometimes you just got to step up and be a man.”
FLIP THE SWITCH: Hawks’ reserve guard Flip Murray couldn’t have asked for a better start to his career in red, white and blue. Once again he was the man on the spot when the Hawks needed it - Murray was on the floor in place of Mike Bibby during crunch time.
Murray scored nine of his 14 points in the fourth quarter, shooting 75 percent (3-for-4) from the floor, including a 2-for-3 showing from beyond the 3-point line.
“I love what he’s giving us,” Joe Johnson said after leading all scorers with 24 points. “With him and Mo, that’s exactly what I was talking about [last preseason] when I said we needed to add some more vets to help out. They’ve been huge for us.”
FRENCH (FOURTH) QUARTER: Just how good were the Hawks in the final 12 minutes on both ends of the floor Wednesday night?
They shot 58 percent (11-for-19) from the floor, including a 5-for-9 showing from beyond the 3-point line.
They limited to the Hornets to 28 percent shooting (5-for-18) from the floor, including a 2-for-9 showing from beyond the 3-point line.
The Hawks’ 14-3 run (they went from trailing 62-58 at the end of the third quarter to leading 72-65 with just over seven minutes to play) was the game-clinching run.
The Hornets didn’t have the wherewithal or the tools to fight back against an aggressor like the Hawks Wednesday night.
PERFECTION: Tell me you didn’t notice Marvin Williams and his 3-for-3 showing from beyond the 3-point line, I dare you.
I wrote about it before and I’ll say it again right now, if he can consistently be a threat from that distance this team becomes a totally different animal.
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Growing up?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - The Hawks were down 23 in the first half of their home opener Saturday night, Marvin Williams and Josh Smith hadn’t made a shot and the electricity that lit the building up during the pregame introductions had disappeared.
I’d already begun writing the Hawks’ epitaph for the night, starting with their typical collapse after an impressive win in the season opener in Orlando.
Those stories aren’t hard to write, not when you’ve worked through a 13-69 season with the same team and learned how to write “this team stinks” 69 different ways.
But a strange thing happened on the way to my laptop. The Hawks grew up (and came back and won impressively). It didn’t just happen Saturday night, of course, the Hawks’ maturation process. It’s been a long, painstaking process, one I believe took root during that fateful 13-69 season.
It just became plain to see Saturday night. And it was in the way the Hawks methodically walked Philadelphia down and finished them off with huge plays in the final minutes of the game.
While some people left Philips Arena smiling and relieved that the Hawks once again found a way to salvage an ugly start, I walked away realizing that there is something to the theory that it’s worth taking some lumps by sticking with a plan (it’s just too bad so many folks who were involved in this process aren’t around to enjoy this side of things).
Take Smith’s performance Saturday night for the surest sign that these Hawks have grown up.
Two years ago a first-half performance like the one he had would have been the prelude to a disastrous night. But he rebounded by staying under control, making himself a presence around the basket and cranking up his defensive effort in order to make sure his contribution to the evening didn’t end with a horrid shooting first half.
(Remember this snippet from the other night: “It was so ugly early on …” said Smith, who rebounded from an 0-for-7 start to finish 6-for-16 from the floor and with 14 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and two blocks. “I wanted to help them out in any way I could. I had to pick my game up in the second half and it started with defense. From there we started hitting shots and the crowd gave us a huge lift.”)
And he wasn’t the only one.
Zaza Pachulia left that night with Mike Woodson’s blessing and the game ball. And Joe Johnson left with yet another victim on the list of those who have yet to figure out that he is indeed one of the league’s most dangerous clutch players. Mike Bibby left with the respect and admiration of many of his teammates, who understand now what it means to have a veteran point guard to keep things straight (like Bibby did along with Johnson in the first half) when the young pokes are struggling.
We all (fans, observers, etc.) left with proof that nothing lasts forever, that whatever your memories of this Hawks team might have been up until now that they might be in need of some editing.
These aren’t the same Hawks you are used to. Where they go from here (2-0 for the first time in a decade) no one knows. But I think we can rest assured that it won’t be anywhere near 13-69, or anything like that.
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