Woodson wants to win in preseason too

Hawks coach Mike Woodson won’t apologize for his Al Davis approach to preseason basketball.

When asked what his approach to the Hawks’ eight-game preseason slate would be, Woodson borrowed one of the longtime Oakland Raiders boss’s most famous slogans.

“Just win baby,” Woodson said with a smile Sunday after the Hawks wrapped up their final practice in preparation for tonight’s preseason opener in Orlando. “It’s time to play, man. Some people view preseason game as something to get players in shape and get ready for the season.

“To me, it’s huge in terms of using that time to bond and get used to doing things in a winning way. I don’t think you can do it any other way. You have to play to win.”

Woodson’s players are used to his 100 mile an hour routine during the preseason, be it practices or preseason games. Last year the Hawks piled up a 7-1 preseason record and Woodson has no doubt that early success, even though it didn’t count on the final tally, was invaluable.

When the Hawks ended the franchise’s nearly decade-long playoff drought in April, Woodson pointed to the work they did last October as the foundation.

“Coach believes in doing it this way and that’s going to be a shock to some of these guys that haven’t gone through training camp with him before,” Joe Johnson said. “I’ve been warning Mike [Bibby] about it. I told him to be ready to go, so at least he has a little warning.”

Just because he’s bent on winning every single preseason game doesn’t mean Woodson plans to run his starters into the ground with heavy minutes. He said he realizes that there has to be a balance.

That said, he’s not willing to back completely away from his win-at-all-cost approach, for fear of his message not getting through to the newcomers.

“It’s true,” Woodson said. “And I made that clear to my veterans at the end of practice [Sunday] that they have to be the leaders in this area. If they’re playing at a high level it translates over to the guys like Randolph Morris, who might only play three minutes but realizes that he has to play on fire when he’s out there or he might not play.”

Games this week against Orlando, Phoenix (Wednesday) and Portland (Friday in Kansas City) highlight an odd opening stretch that sees the Hawks embark on the kind of road trip most teams don’t like to see until sometime after Christmas, when their chemistry is usually set.

Woodson, however, relishes the challenge.

What better way to test your mettle, he said, than to have to do so on the road right out of the gate.

“I’m not going to play Joe and those guys huge minutes,” Woodson said. “Our bench guys have to play so I can somehow make sure they develop the right chemistry. And it’s going to be new for me with Flip Murray and Mo Evans and trying to see how they fit with Zaza [Pachulia] and Solomon [Jones]. It’s no doubt going to be a work in progress for us the next eight games. I just want to us focused on winning at the same time.”