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Thursday, January 8, 2009
Practice? We’re talking about practice?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - While waiting for the 1,436th* practice I’ve attended to end Thursday, it hit me.
I’ve seen more practices - and I’m talking everything from high school in every sport, college football, basketball and baseball and scads of NBA workouts that could put you to sleep - than I have anything else in my 15 years in this business.
The scariest part is that I find practice enjoyable, as much or more than the games sometimes (don’t tell Allen Iverson). You’d think it would get old after all these years, but it hasn’t.
Practice is where you find out the reasons why something happens in the game. More specifically, Thursday’s Hawks practice is where you find out why they couldn’t slow down Orlando Wednesday night until it was too late.
(And for the record, the Hawks spent too much time misreading their assignments on the pick and roll against the Magic, getting caught up with trying to keep a body on Dwight Howard while allowing the rest of Howard’s teammates to continually stroke uncontested shots as they built an early 21-point lead.)
Thursday was the day to correct that mistake and plenty of others for Mike Woodson and his staff. And let’s just say it wasn’t a session the family could have attended, as there were far too many interesting words uttered by Woodson for anyone with sensitive ears to be allowed in.
I dug his approach and understood his main point; basically the Hawks made mistakes, most all of them correctable, he said. But if they weren’t committed to doing things the way they have along the road to this 22-12 record, he’d be happy to make sure and play guys that were committed to doing it that way.
He didn’t mince his words. Not once. And not for anybody, including his starters and captain and All-Star. It was rather refreshing to see, as I’m not always privy to the goings on at every practice for various reasons.
But I got the feeling that Woodson didn’t care who saw what I saw Thursday. He was as intense as I’ve seen him and made sure his team understood that the message the Magic wanted to send, similar to the one the Hawks sent with their season-opening win in Orlando, was delivered first class.
Now, the question is can the Hawks reply in a similar fashion Friday night at Amway Arena?
FOOTBALL, TOO: The Hawks will be represented in south Florida tonight. Al Horford left after practice for the BCS title game to cheer on his beloved Florida Gators in their championship battle against Oklahoma.
As far as good luck charms go, the Gators could do much worse than a 6-10, 245-pounder with two title rings on his fingers.
The Hawks’ locker room was divided by the pro-SEC crowd, led by Josh Smith (Georgia born and SEC bred), and the pro-Big 12 crowd, led by Mo Evans (a Texas alum and a staunch believer in the Sooners, ‘Horns and anyone else from that part of the country).
Since my college football ban has ended, ’09 is a new year and I think my boys will be back at some point this year, tonight’s title game is as good a time as any to start yappin’ about my favorite sport again.
PECKING ORDER: Back to hoops, of course.
I spent the past few days working on a story about the Hawks’ starting backcourt and where they might rank among the NBA’s elite (it’s rather high actually, and check ajc.com and the paper this weekend for the details).
During the course of that busy work I sat down with Hawks general manager Rick Sund and we talked briefly about Joe Johnson and Mike Bibby and he said something really interesting about the Hawks’ guard rotation that I wanted to share.
“I think the chemistry factor is really good,” he said. “We’ve got two guys in Joe and Bibby that can shoot the ball, two guys that can handle the ball and two guys that can recognize other people when they’re open. I really like our guard situation, all our guards bring something completely different to the table. Joe brings something completely different than Bibby. And Bibby brings something completely different than Flip Murray. Flip brings something completely different than the other guys. We’ve got a great pecking order and people accept it, including the coaching staff. They accept what the strengths and weaknesses are of the individual player, especially at the guard spot.”
It’s an interesting observation and one I can’t say I really thought a whole lot about before our conversation. But it does point out an interesting wrinkle in how Woodson has been playing his guards.
He has everything but a defensive stopper in the backcourt. He has a candidate that gets talked about around here almost as much or more as any of the starters (yeah, Acie Law IV) but the guy barely plays.
Law is the only guard they have capable of developing into an on-ball defensive stopper (Mario West has the desire but he’s not light enough on his feet to stay in front of smaller point guards).
The job is open and Law is looking for work.
It only makes sense.
- Give or take a couple hundred practices.
