Hawks shut down rookie Jennings

By Michael Cunningham

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Hawks finally made Brandon Jennings look like a rookie.

After the Milwaukee guard poured in 34 points in Game 1, the Hawks harassed him into a 3-for-15 shooting night in Game 2. Jennings scored only nine points and was so ineffective that Skiles left him on the bench for the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter.

Hawks guard Joe Johnson can’t match Jennings’ quickness, but he has six inches of height and about 70 pounds on him. He used those physical advantages and veteran savvy to make things difficult on Jennings.

“Joe has been playing a lot of point guards, so he’s somewhat used to it,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. “Jennings is a tough cover. He can get to the rim, and he can make shots. When we did switch, the ‘bigs’ did a good job of making him shoot jump shots.”

Jennings doesn’t seem to yet have a feel for getting his teammates involved. That didn’t hurt the Bucks much in Game 1, when Jennings had just three assists but made 14 of 25 shots.

But in Game 2 he had only two assists to go along with the poor shooting.

“We wanted to give him different looks,” Hawks guard Jamal Crawford said. “Sometimes trap him, sometimes ‘half trap’ him, acting like we are going to trap.”