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Thursday, December 11, 2008
Don’t mess with .500!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SAN ANTONIO - Having already slogged through a four-game losing streak this season the Hawks know that they are dancing dangerously close to the line they don’t want to cross after such a strong start.
Don’t mess with .500.
Not when you hit the road for this week’s four-game road trip six games above sea level.
And not when you’ve got an inviting December schedule waiting for you to take advantage of it.
Now is not the time for things to come unhinged in Hawksville.
Which is why is as good a time as any for an intervention for these Hawks.
And since they reached 6-0 together, sharing the love accordingly and collectively, it’s only right that they share the heat accordingly and collectively now that they’re marred in a 6-9 slide since then.
After all, the facts are the facts.
One of the league’s elite defensive teams in the first two weeks of the season, the Hawks have suddenly become a punching bag for opponents.
In the first six games of the season the Hawks allowed opposing teams just 89.5 points per game. In the 14 games prior to Wednesday night that averaged ballooned to 98.9 points, the only noticeable difference during that stretch being the absence of the team’s leading shot-blocker, Josh Smith (high ankle sprain), for a 12-game stint on the inactive list.
During that same 14-game span the opposing team’s shooting percentages in every category rose as well, the clearest sign that the Hawks’ defensive focus has run away from the nest.
So again, with a quarter of this NBA season already completed the Hawks remain above sea level in the standings, but just barely.
By the time the Hawks make it home from Friday’s game in Miami they’ll have completed an early season sprint that saw them play 14 of their first 22 games on the road, a rough start by any standard.
But they’ll make up for that tough early road over the next three weeks with home games every other day.
And Saturday’s game against a smokin’ hot Cleveland team isn’t even a retreat to some sort of safe ground, even though the Hawks are an impressive 7-1 at Philips Arena this season, because that first home game (on a back-to-back no less) after a long road trip is always a tough one to deal with.
You have roughly 48 hours to lock back in and get your focus back Hawks.
Because once you dip below .500, the road back above that mark is a rugged one, no matter how inviting the schedule might look.
