DEL.ICIO.USHawks rally to beat Thunder and stay unbeaten
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Oklahoma City — The warning was sounded to a nearly empty Ford Center Sunday morning.
Some of his players were probably still trying to wake up when Mike Woodson was at his prophetic best.
“You can’t just expect to come in here and roll over this team,” the Hawks coach told his players at their morning shootaround practice prior to playing Oklahoma City. “It doesn’t work like that.”
Hours later, trailing the lowly Thunder by seven points with 6:45 to play before a thunderous crowd of 18,231, Woodson’s words must have still been ringing in his players’ ears.
It’s a good thing they listened.
Not only couldn’t the Hawks just show up and defeat the Thunder, they had to play to the final buzzer for the first time this season to pick up their fifth-straight win, an 89-85 grinder.
“Nobody said it was going to be easy every night,” said Hawks’ reserve guard Flip Murray, whose 14 points were crucial to the winning effort. “This is a tough crowd to come play under. They’ve got a lot of energy in their building. And like Woody said, you can’t just show up. We had to keep fighting. Sometimes it’s not going to be pretty. But we still got it done.”
The Thunder (1-5) played inspired basketball while the Hawks (5-0) labored intensely for most of the night.
With the Hawks’ defense swarming all around them, the Thunder still found a way to take that 75-68 lead with just under seven minutes left.
But Murray, with Woodson’s warning on repeat in his head, scored nine straight points to tie the game at 77-77 with 4:59 to play.
“To their credit, these guys didn’t panic,” Woodson said. “In the timeout I explained to them that we had plenty of time but we had to get some stops and start making some buckets. And we did that. We made some key stops and made some big buckets coming down the stretch.
“Flip just caught fire for us at the right time and gave us that push we needed to go and secure the win.”
Even without starting power forward Josh Smith, who is out two to four weeks with a high ankle sprain, the Hawks were able to impose their defensive will on yet another opponent.
Al Horford picked up the slack in the blocked shots department, finishing with five to go along with his eight points and 12 rebounds.
Solomon Jones grabbed a season-high 10 rebounds, helping fill another void left by Smith’s absence.
And Marvin Williams scored 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds to give the Hawks a potent second scorer without Smith in tow — he stayed back in Atlanta for treatment.
Nothing could make up for the Hawks’ miserable shooting night, they made 37 percent (29-for-78) of their shots from the floor, including a 7-for-17 showing from beyond the 3-point line.
But they hung tough on the boards against a bigger Thunder team and they drilled the Thunder on fast-break points 23-9.
“We knew we had to defend and rebound no matter what,” Horford said. “I think we’re starting to figure out that’s what will always keep us in the game. We didn’t shoot the best tonight. But I think our defense and rebounding carried us through.”
That and those words from Woodson, that not so subtle reminder that his team was the Thunder a couple years ago, the underdog hungry for a signature win against a superior opponent.
“I’ve played on teams like that,” Mike Bibby said, “where people think it’s an automatic win when you show up. I don’t think we thought like that. The shots just weren’t falling.
“The good thing is, you know you’re getting better when you win games like this. And it helps having a guy like Flip. He caught fire at just the right time.”
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