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We have won the previous three meets, but Portland is one of the best home teams.

Portland is favored to win by 5 points.

Dont have a good feel for this game. Gonna be interesting to see how Gerald Wallace fits in with them. Love this Portland team come playoff time. Very dangerous.

We need Josh and Al taking it to the hole. If we settle for jumpers then we play into Portland's hands.

evildallas wrote:We need Josh and Al taking it to the hole. If we settle for jumpers then we play into Portland's hands.

I like the odds of playing into their hands then.

New York beat Miami.

Portland is favored and it's on the road, but we need to take advantage of the Knicks gift.

Why is Hinrich playing limited minutes?

I like the aggression so far. Teague needs more minutes and Marvin should not be allowed to shoot a 3 ever again. He never makes them.

Josh Smith needs more love for charge taking ability.

ATL DirtyBird wrote:I like the aggression so far. Teague needs more minutes and Marvin should not be allowed to shoot a 3 ever again. He never makes them.

It's funny because Marvin has a 9'0 standing reach(longer than both Horford and Smith),never forces anything & has ideal shooting mechanics but somehow he's only shooting 45 percent from the field.

Since Drew says we don't want to run with them, his answer is iso-Jamal? Hinrich asks for the ball but we look past him and let Jamal run the offense. Brilliant. Meanwhile, in a slow-down offense, we give Horford ONE shot.

HoopsGuru25 wrote:

ATL DirtyBird wrote:I like the aggression so far. Teague needs more minutes and Marvin should not be allowed to shoot a 3 ever again. He never makes them.

It's funny because Marvin has a 9'0 standing reach(longer than both Horford and Smith),never forces anything & has ideal shooting mechanics but somehow he's only shooting 45 percent from the field.

Well, the reach indicates he should DRIVE more. I think he shoots out of rhythm, never the way he wants to. He lets the situation dictate to him.

Of course, if we keep playing defense like this, it doesn't matter what offense we play.

parson wrote:

HoopsGuru25 wrote:

ATL DirtyBird wrote:I like the aggression so far. Teague needs more minutes and Marvin should not be allowed to shoot a 3 ever again. He never makes them.

It's funny because Marvin has a 9'0 standing reach(longer than both Horford and Smith),never forces anything & has ideal shooting mechanics but somehow he's only shooting 45 percent from the field.

Well, the reach indicates he should DRIVE more. I think he shoots out of rhythm, never the way he wants to. He lets the situation dictate to him.

He cant do anything right consistently. WHen he drives, he gets hit and falls to the ground like hes been shot. He cant make a jumper consistently.

And ya Hoops, you would think those mechanics, coupled with the fact that he is always open that he would make a much higher percentage of his shots.

36 points allowed. Man, I didn't realize how good a defender each of our starters are. To think of all the times I spoke well of Bibby. I knew he was hurting us but I never dreamed it was to this extent. We're playing clumsy offense and it doesn't matter -- our defense is just that good.

By the way, this defense -- 6'4 Hinrich, 6'7 Joe, 6'9 Marvelous, 6'9 Smoove and 6'10 Horford -- was Billy Knight's ideal. We're still being influenced by his dream. For all his drafting problems, his idea still intrigues me. If we start running fast breaks out of this defense, we'll be exactly the team that BK was aiming for. Maybe we'll finally get to see if it could be good enough.

Sorry to those who don't like BK - and I'm not saying I'm a fan of his - I'm just saying that his philosophy still rules over us.

Does anyone else wonder if Joe's hurt again? Whenever he goes into one of his funks, it always seems we later hear he was hurt.

Looking good Hawks. Please don't play with my emotions tonight...

I love when the Hawks actually make an outlet pass after a stop as opposed to Smith or Horford dribbling the ball up the court.

I can get used to these easy fast break layups.

This is what I have been waiting to see: defense turning into fastbreaks.

I've thoroughly enjoyed watching this game.