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Monday, February 5, 2007
Hawks leave fans wanting more
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks are neither as bad as we’d feared or as good as they’d hoped. They’re better than they’ve been in the post-Babcock era — this, admittedly, fits the utter definition of faint praise — but they’ve fallen into the habit of tripping themselves just as they seem poised to take a real step forward.
And perhaps we shouldn’t expect much more than this halting form of progress. Perhaps we should feel grateful that this is no longer the NBA’s absolute worst team. Perhaps we should be patient over these next five seasons while Billy Knight finds every excuse possible not to draft the point guard he needs, but watching games like Monday night’s can only make the Atlanta audience less understanding, less as opposed to more.
The glitzy Lakers rolled into Philips Arena just past the midpoint of an eight-game road trip. The Hawks had won five of their last seven, the latest being a riveting overtime victory in New Jersey on Sunday. But here we witnessed, not for the first time and surely not for the last, the problems inherent in a team with a growing nucleus of big-time players that lacks big-timers at the two positions that matter most.
One is center, and we can excuse that failing because almost nobody has one. (Though the Lakers, in the 19-year-old Andrew Bynum, seem to have found something, and Bynum was drafted with the 10th pick of the 2005 draft, eight slots after the Hawks took Marvin Williams.) The other, as has been noted endlessly, is point guard, and the Hawks have passed over three good ones — Chris Paul and the Williamses, Deron and Marcus — in the last two drafts. And every time we see the Hawks lose to bottom-feeders Philadelphia or Charlotte (as happened three times in January), we’re reminded that a skilled point guard is the difference between consistency and oscillation.
There was no real reason for the Hawks to lose to the Lakers, but they did. They led 2-0 and never again. They made but 28.9 percent of their first-half shots because they had no one other than Joe Johnson to run the offense, and Johnson, as splendid as he is, can’t initiate and finish the same play. Not coincidentally, Johnson had more turnovers (six) than assists (five). Not coincidentally, Johnson needed 26 shots to score 27 points.
At the end, Johnson was also given the impossible task of shadowing Kobe Bryant, and that didn’t work, either. Bryant scored 11 decisive fourth-quarter points and nursed his otherwise unassuming team home, and the frazzled Johnson wound up missing free throws and getting picked clean by Smush Parker.
“We fought with them,” Josh Smith said. “Kobe just made big shots at the end, which is what he does.”
Well, yes. The sin wasn’t in getting beat by the best in the final minutes. The sin was in leaving the game there for Kobe to win. The sin was in letting a touring visitor gain an early advantage on a team that should have been primed to consolidate recent gains.
Once again, we have to ask if the Hawks have been given the right players with which to grow. They have really good swingmen, yes. As Jon Koncak, the former Hawk, said Monday: “They don’t need eight players anymore. They only need two.”
Guess which two.
At some point this accumulation of mismatched assets must yield to a more conventional deployment. At some point these young guys have to be given the chance to win more than occasionally. Asked if he gets impatient, Smith said: “Yeah, I do. This is my third year, and I want to be able to witness the atmosphere of the playoffs.”
We all would. But that won’t happen this spring, same as it hasn’t happened any spring around here since 1999. The Hawks aren’t so bad we can ignore them any longer, but watching closely only leaves us wanting more.
Permalink | Comments (29) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Hawks leave fans wanting more
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks are neither as bad as we’d feared or as good as they’d hoped. They’re better than they’ve been in the post-Babcock era — this, admittedly, fits the utter definition of faint praise — but they’ve fallen into the habit of tripping themselves just as they seem poised to take a real step forward.
And perhaps we shouldn’t expect much more than this halting form of progress. Perhaps we should feel grateful that this is no longer the NBA’s absolute worst team. Perhaps we should be patient over these next five seasons while Billy Knight finds every excuse possible not to draft the point guard he needs, but watching games like Monday night’s can only make the Atlanta audience less understanding, less as opposed to more.
The glitzy Lakers rolled into Philips Arena just past the midpoint of an eight-game road trip. The Hawks had won five of their last seven, the latest being a riveting overtime victory in New Jersey on Sunday. But here we witnessed, not for the first time and surely not for the last, the problems inherent in a team with a growing nucleus of big-time players that lacks big-timers at the two positions that matter most.
One is center, and we can excuse that failing because almost nobody has one. (Though the Lakers, in the 19-year-old Andrew Bynum, seem to have found something, and Bynum was drafted with the 10th pick of the 2005 draft, eight slots after the Hawks took Marvin Williams.) The other, as has been noted endlessly, is point guard, and the Hawks have passed over three good ones — Chris Paul and the Williamses, Deron and Marcus — in the last two drafts. And every time we see the Hawks lose to bottom-feeders Philadelphia or Charlotte (as happened three times in January), we’re reminded that a skilled point guard is the difference between consistency and oscillation.
There was no real reason for the Hawks to lose to the Lakers, but they did. They led 2-0 and never again. They made but 28.9 percent of their first-half shots because they had no one other than Joe Johnson to run the offense, and Johnson, as splendid as he is, can’t initiate and finish the same play. Not coincidentally, Johnson had more turnovers (six) than assists (five). Not coincidentally, Johnson needed 26 shots to score 27 points.
At the end, Johnson was also given the impossible task of shadowing Kobe Bryant, and that didn’t work, either. Bryant scored 11 decisive fourth-quarter points and nursed his otherwise unassuming team home, and the frazzled Johnson wound up missing free throws and getting picked clean by Smush Parker.
“We fought with them,” Josh Smith said. “Kobe just made big shots at the end, which is what he does.”
Well, yes. The sin wasn’t in getting beat by the best in the final minutes. The sin was in leaving the game there for Kobe to win. The sin was in letting a touring visitor gain an early advantage on a team that should have been primed to consolidate recent gains.
Once again, we have to ask if the Hawks have been given the right players with which to grow. They have really good swingmen, yes. As Jon Koncak, the former Hawk, said Monday: “They don’t need eight players anymore. They only need two.”
Guess which two.
At some point this accumulation of mismatched assets must yield to a more conventional deployment. At some point these young guys have to be given the chance to win more than occasionally. Asked if he gets impatient, Smith said: “Yeah, I do. This is my third year, and I want to be able to witness the atmosphere of the playoffs.”
We all would. But that won’t happen this spring, same as it hasn’t happened any spring around here since 1999. The Hawks aren’t so bad we can ignore them any longer, but watching closely only leaves us wanting more.
Permalink | | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
A Super Bowl of firsts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Miami — Long before Prince spent halftime on Sunday belting out his famous “Let’s Go Crazy” in the not so Purple Rain streaming into Dolphin Stadium, the Bears and the Colts already were into crazy.
Five fumbles. A kickoff returned for a touchdown to start the game. An interception. A missed field goal from makeable range by the most clutch kicker ever. A botched snap on an extra point.
Then again, both teams had an excuse for their collective sloppiness. For the first time in XLI Super Bowls, one of these things was played during a steady downpour, which only was appropriate since this was a Super Bowl of firsts.
When the Colts finally conquered the icky weather and a shockingly inept opponent for a relatively easy 29-17 victory, this was first time the “Indianapolis” Colts won a world championship. This was the first time Peyton Manning won the Big One. This was the first time one of the NFL’s worst defenses during the regular season became one of its best during the playoffs. This also was the first time for that other thing involving Super Bowls.
That African-American thing.
Nobody remembers the second man to walk on the moon. Plus, most U.S. presidents between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are a blur. So the Bears’ Lovie Smith just became an asterisk while the Colts’ Tony Dungy sprinted into history as an exclamation point.
“I thought about that as I was up there on the podium, being the first African-American coach to win [the Super Bowl],” said Dungy, who deserved such a distinction for so many reasons. It begins and ends with this: After Dungy finally got his chance as a head coach in the league following a slew of token interviews, he spurred the NFL careers of other black coaches. He gave Smith his first NFL job in 1996, when Dungy was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Just as impressive, Dungy kept using his legendary calmness from his Christian faith to help the Colts stiff arm adversity in the playoffs. For instance: Despite spending the season looking wretched against the run, they stuffed Larry Johnson and the Kansas City Chiefs. Then the Colts defense outslugged the notoriously rugged defense of the Ravens in Baltimore.
Later, after two previous failures, the Colts defeated the great Tom Brady, and they did so after trailing the New England Patriots by 18 points.
Now this, and remember: Dome teams aren’t supposed to prosper under these murky conditions. Not only that, the Bears took the opening kickoff 92 yards in 14 seconds, which would be enough to crush the meek. “We said coming in that there were going to be some storms in the game, so we weren’t shocked and upset after the opening kickoff,” said Dungy, who had the perfect antidote for the Bears — a highly motivated Manning.
Well, that, and a balanced Colts offense that featured lots of touches by Joseph Addai (19 carries for 77 yards and 10 catches for 66 yards) and 113 yards on 21 carries from Dominic Rhodes.
If you add that to Manning going from a rocky first drive that ended in an interception to MVP honors after completing 25 of 38 passes for 247 yards and a touchdown, you have the Colts surviving their early silliness.
Let’s just say the Colts got exactly what they deserved to start the game. They kicked to Devin Hester. You do one of those directional things. You squib it. You kick it to somebody else.
You just don’t kick to Hester. Not unless you want the guy to do something like sprint 92 yards with the opening kickoff to give the Bears a 7-0 lead and momentum.
Dungy is a fast learner. The rest of the game, he ordered the Colts’ Adam Vinatieri to turn Hester into a forgotten man on kickoffs whenever possible.
Too bad for the Bears that their quarterback also vanished. The same went for their defense. That dual disappearing act featuring Rex Grossman and the usually omnipresent Brian Urlacher happened soon after the Bears quickly countered Manning’s 53-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. The Bears sprinted 57 yards on four plays to the end zone after a Colts turnover for a 14-6 lead.
It was all a mirage. Dungy could see through the rain that this world championship was destined for an NFL team into horseshoes. And now, with apologies to Prince, they are partying in Indianapolis like it’s 2007.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
