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Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Go West!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
HAWKSVILLE - Since Joe Johnson isn’t the world’s most talkative NBA player, I’ve taken to reading his body language and facial expressions for signs of his comfort level with all things Hawks.
Sometimes all I need to see is him frowning as he comes off the floor for a timeout to know that he’s furious about something. Other times it’s a slap of the hands after a missed shot or turnover to know that he’s angry with himself for missing an opportunity.
With these solemn, silent, only-child types like Johnson, a simple sagging of the shoulders says more than he could in a 20-minute conversation.
But an hour before the Hawks boarded their charter flight for Phoenix Monday, and their three-game Western Conference road trip, Johnson made clear his displeasure with the way his team has performed since the New Year began.
“… this isn’t just a spell we’re going through right now,” he said when I asked him if he thought the Hawks’ three-game slide was just a momentary lapse. “It’s about a lack of focus on our part. It’s just about playing with more energy, more heart and more determination. We’ve been going out there lately playing lackadaisical, like we can win games because we think we’re good. When you don’t respect teams and players in this league you can go out there and get your tail kicked like we have lately.”
Johnson’s subtle dig about the Hawks not respecting teams and players is a direct shot at some of his teammates (young and old, starters and reserves) that he feels ease up when they’re facing teams and players they assume they’re better than - Sunday’s game against Philly comes to mind, and I’ll let you choose your own adventure in terms of who he is referring to specifically.
But he makes a good point. And one that Al Horford has voiced in his own way in the past.
The bottom line is this; the Hawks aren’t capable of shifting into cruise control against anyone. That much should be abundantly clear after the past four years.
And they do it far too often for a team that dreams of big things in April.
Mismatch
The Hawks’ issues right now run deeper than just being emotionally prepared on a nightly basis.
An advance scout friend pointed out something interesting about the way they’re playing right now.
He highlighted some things he noticed during Sunday’s game as evidence that the Hawks aren’t taking advantage of mismatches on the offensive end of the floor that they exploited brilliantly earlier this season.
“There was one stretch where Andre Miller was guarding Josh Smith and Louis Williams was on Marvin Williams and the Hawks ignored both of those opportunities for their standard sets on the other side of the floor,” my scout friend said. “That’s not winning basketball in this league. You have to be able to recognize where those mismatches are and max them out. Joe and [Mike] Bibby have been piling up assists, but they left a lot of plays on the floor Sunday. Even worse, they let those Philly guards off the hook on the defensive end. They didn’t make them work the way you have to with two 6-9 guys on them.”
I’ve heard that critique of the Hawks several times this year, that they don’t utilize the entire floor the way they should offensively because they’re so used to their default setting of ‘Give it to Joe and watch him go.”
It’s a valid opinion. I can think of a lot of ways to breathe life into a struggling team. And one of those would be taking some of the pressure off of your No. 1 option by utilizing some of your other options, not all the time but just whenever the opportunity presents itself.
The Hawks have actually gone over this stuff in practice the past few days but they haven’t seen any improvement during games. It makes no sense.
Both Johnson and Bibby have to recognize the mismatches and exploit them. Because if the scouts notice it, you can be the cats on the floor (on both sides) notice it as well.
Where’s Josh?
You might have seen the small box underneath the story on the front of today’s sports section highlighting three things that could help the Hawks snap out of their funk (fine, if you don’t still peep the hard copy I’ll tell you about one of them now).
Josh Smith has averaged just 4.3 rebounds in the Hawks’ past five games, down from his paltry season average of 6.6. That needs to change dramatically with Al Horford out for this road trip.
But it also needs to change because Smith is too good a player and too good an athlete to rebound like a shooting guard.
He didn’t grab his first rebound Sunday until the 8:14 mark of the third quarter. How a 6-9 guy that can jump over the moon goes the entire first half and the first few minutes of the second without a grabbing a single rebound is beyond me (and plenty of other people that have noticed his decreased activity on the boards this season).
This dude is just not playing the way he normally does. Anyone can see that. He’s watching the action go by him on both ends of the floor.
He has to be involved and active on both ends for the Hawks to be at their best. There’s no getting around that.
Solo for Zaza?
Zaza Pachulia will get the start in place of Horford tonight against the Suns (and Shaquille O’Neal).
But don’t be surprised if Solomon Jones is deployed with the starting unit against the LA Clipper and possibly Golden State.
Pachulia’s been so good off the bench that moving him into the starting lineup, the way the Hawks did Sunday, seemed to mute his effectiveness.
