Impatient Hawks need to settle down, or else

CLEVELAND - One pass and shoot.

That seemed to be the Hawks’ offensive strategy in the second half of their Game 1 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday.

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AP

Hawks Joe Johnson says it’s frustrating to pass, knowing that you’re not going to get the ball back.

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It was a strategy, albeit by default, that turned a competitive game into a rout in a matter of minutes.

Try it again in Game 2 Thursday at Quicken Loans Arena, and the Hawks’ are laying the groundwork for yet another postseason blowout.

No one was more disappointed in the way the Hawks played offensively in Game 1 than captain and All-Star Joe Johnson, who also happens to be the trigger man of the offense.

“It’s very difficult and frustrating at the same time,” Johnson said Wednesday, before the Hawks hit the practice floor. “Because if you give the ball up, there’s now way you’re going to get the ball back. I played 40 minutes and took 10 shots. And we can’t play like that. But I don’t know if everybody knows that. And that’s why, if we don’t figure it out, this might be a short series.”

Johnson’s grim view of the Hawks’ Game 1 showing doesn’t jive with coach Mike Woodson’s analysis.

He insists that when the ball works its way around the floor to the open man, things run smoothly.

And that means Johnson has to pass out of traps and double teams knowing that he’s not always going to see the ball again on a given possession, due mostly to the defensive scheme the Cavs have designed to make sure that he doesn’t.

“He’s not going to get it back,” Woodson said. “They are not going to let him get back. I thought Joe did an excellent job of getting rid of the ball. It was what the next guy did with it that sometimes caused the breakdown. And that said, we made some good plays out of the double teams.

“That’s why I don’t want these guys to get discouraged. Because sometimes that’s good offense.”

Still, the Hawks weren’t able to keep their offense humming long enough to stay with the Cavs. It had as much to do with their inability to spread the ball around as it had to do with anything.

“We always play better when we play together on both ends of the floor,” Hawks point guard Mike Bibby said. “That’s the bottom line for us.”

That and getting both Johnson and Josh Smith going at the same time. The Hawks are 11-1 this year, regular season and playoffs included, when their two leading scorers have 20 or more points each in the same game.

“We’ve got to be able to attack this team with all five guys on the floor at any one time,” Mo Evans said. “They’re attacking us with all of their guys. They insert guys into the game and immediately run a set for him. They’re coming at us in all kinds of ways, so we can’t just concentrate on LeBron [James]. They’re out there laughing and joking and having fun. And that in itself is demoralizing, when you have a team full of guys just playing together and picking you apart.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the first quarter or the fourth quarter, they constantly put pressure on you from all over the floor. And, to be honest, we need to copy that style a little bit. It has to be a team thing.”