Game 53: Atlanta at Utah

[HoopsGuru25]

The Hawks lost and played idiotic basketball, but I am encouraged. Bibby and Josh Smith played extremely well and I thought Marvin did well in the 2nd half as well. Horford picked a wrong time to have one of his worst games ever though. Boozer schooled him thoroughly.

Props to Woody for taking Bibby out in the 3rd when he single handedly brought us back from a 20 point deficit. Was anyone suprised when Utah went right back to a 12-14 point lead? Maybe we should actually play our players when they are in foul trouble and take a risk for once. Atleast we got back in the game late in the 4th as well thanks to Marvin/Joe/Bibby. The Hawks finally have a real pg...some of his passes off the pick and roll were beautiful and his jumpshot looks like it's going in every time he shoots. I think the Hawks should be OK once they start facing worse competition in the East.

[Skyhawk1]

I wonder why we keep Salim in the game when he can't buy a basket. I wonder why everytime we need a big basket down the stretch J. Smith comes up with a jump shot. What's going on with Marvin ? Horford had an off night. If we didn't have Bibby, we would be getting blown out night in night out. He plays with more heart than ANY of our players.

[tontoz]

22 turnovers against a weak defensive team is just a joke.

I have been impressed with Bibby so far, even though he is hobbling badly. His shooting ability and quick release make him a constant threat and really opens things up for everyone else. When he went out of the game it was just a turnover festival.

Is there some reason Horford can't score against slow stiffs? He played 38 minutes and got only 4 pts against Okur.

[tontoz]

I loved the play call after the time out at the end that resulted in a Smith jumper. That is just the play i would have called.

[HoopsGuru25]

Woodson definitely coached an awful game. I think it was pretty clear that the Hawks only chance of winning was to play it as if were a playoff game and just keep the starters in for basically the entire 2nd half. We had no spark off the bench. Turnovers and bench scoring cost us. Utah had 10 less turnovers and their bench outscored our bench 36 to 10.

[Lue_4_MVP]

1) Bibby is terrific. He's connecting and meshing with teammates better in his 3rd game than some of our guys that have played with each other for 4 years!

2) We have no gameplan whatsoever, most of our guys are out of control, too many unforced turnovers - signs of a bad team.

3) Horford in the post is a disaster. He is best from what I've seen playing like a Boozer running off pick-and-rolls and dunking it instead we play him like a Tim Duncan, isolating him in the post and asking him to create.

4) Joe - another quiet 14 point game.. when is our "all-star" going to step up and lead us? Josh Smith can't do it all.

5) Zaza -- just cut him already.

[HoopsGuru25]

Joe almost had a triple double Lue_4_MVP. I thought Bibby/Joe/Josh(minus the 1st half turnovers) all played pretty well. Horford just did not having it going AT ALL. Marvin didn't play that well after looking at the stats, but I recall him hitting several big shots and getting alot of big rebounds during our two big runs. I would have thought he would had alot more rebounds than 5. The Hawks can't get Magloire soon enough. Zaza has just been so bad on such a consistent basis this year. Anybody would be an improvement.

[raleigh]

Magloire is likely going to Dallas.

Let's not get our hopes up.

[JoshB914]

I loved the play call after the time out at the end that resulted in a Smith jumper. That is just the play i would have called.

Yeah I forgot about that. The concept was right, but why run the play for Smoove and not Marv or Joe? Woody just killed us tonight. Either way we lost to a better team though.

[niffoc4]

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Yeah I forgot about that. The concept was right, but why run the play for Smoove and not Marv or Joe? Woody just killed us tonight. Either way we lost to a better team though.

Why not take 3's? Down 6 with under a minute left we kept going inside?

[killbuckner]

HG- do you really think it would have been smart to play it ike a playoff game and give the starters no rest? The Jazz are a better team than the Hawks- I would rather see the team more fresh for games they have a better chance of winning.

[HoopsGuru25]

smart? No. However, I don't think it's smart to sit Bibby out for basically an entire quarter with foul trouble especially when he was the one who led us back from a huge deficit in the 2nd quarter. My biggest complaint is that Woody didn't put Bibby back in when Joe went out in the 3rd quarter. I can't blame Woody for our bench being terrible but I can blame him for not recognizing that our bench was terrible in the 1st half when Price/Korver/Harping lit us up. The Hawks only have two players with any semblance of pg skills...if we want to win then one of those players has to be on the court.

I said I didn't mind losing this game in part because Utah has the best home record in the league and we played them well with all their players healthy. It was an encouraging loss because we would have beaten the majority of the teams in the East but I think it was definitely a winnable game w/o the dumb turnovers and dumb lineups.

[HMFFL]

Hawks drop 14th in a row in Utah

[tontoz]

HG- do you really think it would have been smart to play it ike a playoff game and give the starters no rest? The Jazz are a better team than the Hawks- I would rather see the team more fresh for games they have a better chance of winning.

Like the Spurs, their next opponent on Monday? Yeah it makes a lot of sense to rest the starters to get ready for the Spurs on Monday.

The Jazz were ripe to be had. The Hawks played like crap (22 turnovers, most unforced) and still had a good chance to win.

This game showed very clearly the huge dropoff of talent when our bench comes in.

[LL Cool Scott]

Missed the game because of the Memphis-Tennessee game...

How'd we look? How'd Bibby do against Deron? Horford?

[JoshB914]

-= original quote snipped =-

Why not take 3's? Down 6 with under a minute left we kept going inside?

I believe we were actually down 4 at the time but could be wrong.

A big play was when Bibby pulled us within two with a layup. It was a blatant foul but no call and all our guys stood their complaining and didn't get back. They were back up 4 just like that.

[High 5]

The fact that we had about 50 turnovers and they had like 8 and we still were in a position to win at the very end makes me optimistic if we can get healthy and get off this west trip. Our starters definitely outplayed theirs, if Woody didn't throw out that garbage lineup and dig us a huge hole we probably would have won.

[conleyorbust]

Wow, our bench really crapped the bed last night. The starters actually outplayed the Utah starters, which is sayin something because they have one of the most talented starting 5s in the game.

Woodson really has trouble with "game flow" I thought that the Pachulia for Smith sub was a pretty good indication of that. Again, Smith was generating most of our offense and seemed to be in a rythm and he just got pulled. Next thing you know they go on a run and we're down by almost 20. Thats whay I meant the other day when I said he still hasn't learned how to coach a game and manage his bench.

Horford will have these games, Joe wasn't taking over on offense but I actually liked what I saw from him. Bibby has some trouble playin' the PnR but everyone does against Utah. Nice to be a dangerous shooting team.

Not a bad loss, like I said, the starters outplayed theirs. It sucks to lose games that you have a shot at when you are in the hunt for a PO spot. What are you gonna do though? We need some bench reinforcements, I'd like to see Woody get called away for a wedding or something and see how Drew does for a game; if I'm not mistaken he does a lot of the pregame planning - has a decent defensive mind and the guys seem to like him (from the way they reacted in pre).

Anyway, we got an easy game monday...