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Friday, January 9, 2009
One more chance …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ORLANDO - Not that you could tell from today’s Gator-filled sports front of the local paper, there’s a huge game going on here tonight.
The Hawks get one more chance to sideswipe the Southeast Division leading Orlando Magic. With the ugly memories from Wednesday’s lost opportunity still on their minds (thanks mostly to Mike Woodson’s relentless assault on his own team), the fireworks should start long before the fourth quarter.
If the Hawks’ don’t kick off the game with their intensity sky-high I’ll be afraid for their safety.
Woodson was still grinding his team this morning at shootaround, making sure to remind them that the precious bubble they thought they’d wrapped around the court at Philips Arena was popped Wednesday night, despite their furious late rally.
The spike in intensity is a given, and for whatever reason the Hawks always seem to crank up their energy at Amway Arena, so that shouldn’t be a surprise.
What I want to see is if the Hawks execute the things they’ve worked to clean up since Wednesday’s game.
Can they solve their own issues on the pick and roll and find a way to limit the Magic’s shooters from destroying them early again?
Timeout
I know this is off the subject a little bit, fine a lot, but this Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich (the R apparently stands for “Retro”), is perhaps the best character with the worst hair I’ve seen on the tube since my main man Arthur Fonzarelli.
Is dude serious with this hair? They ought to impeach him for that alone. Good grief. My man does realize that it’s 2009 and not 1979 right?
Besides, he’s ruining my time watching the lovely Ms. Tamryn Hall, who takes over for Keri Hilson as my new muse for 2009.
Seriously, he’s making it hard to enjoy Tamryn by sticking that Joe Dirt ‘do in my face every few minutes.
Timeout over
If the Hawks have learned anything in the past 48 hours, it has to be that they present the greatest threat to the Magic when they’re getting up and down the floor and forcing Dwight Howard to chase the action, as opposed to allowing him to set up shop in the lane on both ends of the floor.
It appeared to me that the Magic came into Wednesday’s game with a specific plan of attack against the Hawks, one that was as calculated as it was perfectly executed for most of the night.
But when things got helter-skelter, the Magic didn’t seem to have the answers to slow the Hawks down.
Magic coach Stan Van Gundy is going to want to play this game at his team’s preferred pace. So it’ll be interesting to see if the Hawks try and change that tonight the way they did in their win here in the regular season opener.
With all the action to keep an eye on tonight, and there should be plenty, who wins the tempo battle might be the most critical factor for both sides.
ROSTER UPDATE: Acie Law IV rejoined the team at shootaround this morning and will be available for action tonight. Zaza Pachulia is not with the team and remains out with the flu.
