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Josh Smith will likely find some extra motivation Wednesday night when he returns to Philips Arena for the first time since signing with the Detroit Pistons over the summer.

He helped Atlanta reach the postseason the past six years and ranks in the franchise's top 10 in games played (676), points (10,371), rebounds (5,407), free throws made (2,044), steals (857) and blocked shots (1,440).

Atlanta had won four of five before a 104-88 loss at Miami on Tuesday. The Hawks were held under 100 points for only the second time in 11 games.

With Millsap likely out, I expect Ayon to start at Center and Horford at PF.
Elton played sparingly last night, so I expect they'll at least be able to carry his corpse onto the court for some PT 'Weekend at Bernie's' style.

Pistons fans have already lamented the pairing of Josh with Monroe and Drummond. Their fanbase seems as divided on J-Smoove as we are (were?).

Detroit's defense is terrible, particularly on the road. They're currently allowing 102 ppg. They are 1-4 on the road while we are 3-1 at home.

Thoughts?
Predictions?

You guys prefer Lou and Elton to play tonight against the tougher matchup, or stay fresh and play in the game we're more likely to win?

Either way, this will be an early test of our depth.

I predict: Dennis gets back on track and Mike Scott puts on a scoring clinic against Miami's backups.

Jamaaliver wrote:You guys prefer Lou and Elton to play tonight against the tougher matchup, or stay fresh and play in the game we're more likely to win?

Either way, this will be an early test of our depth.

I predict: Dennis gets back on track and Mike Scott puts on a scoring clinic against Miami's backups.

If I thought either could give 100%, then I'd prefer them play against the better opponent. Not necessarily to try for the W, but to allow them to push themselves in a way that you can only do when the competition is truly elite.

Having said that, I don't think either should be attempting to give more than what they can right now. It appears that Millsap will miss tomorrow night as well so that looks like a situation where he went as far as he could and he can't anymore. We're taking things very slowly with Lou and I can't think it's quite time to push him yet. Maybe if he had more than 1 game under his belt, but that isn't the case.

Having said that, the door is now wide open for Jenkins, Scott and Schröder to make their move. If you don't like sitting the bench, now is the time to prove that you belong on the court. I'm going to be a contrarian and predict that Jenkins is the "out of nowhere" guy tonight - say, 3-4 from 3 and 13 points a couple of assists and an OK defensively against D-Wade. I'll also go with Ayón (d@mn we got a lot of guys with Alt codes in their name now...) as being someone whose play tonight is better than his box score indicates. He helps seal the interior allowing Horford a bit more freedom to roam the court on D.

Not having Millsap is a big blow.

Miami is one of those (very) few teams that we match up against on the glass. Battier at PF and Bosh at C, even if Birdman comes in later.

Korver's streak stretches to 84.

Goin toe to toe with em so far.

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MIA starters have TWO fouls after 3 qtrs, yet they're playing slapping, pulling, pushing defense. That's resulted in a season-high 19 turnovers for us.

Story of the game.

I can't wait for Stern to retire, maybe then the refs won't feel obligated and pressured to side with Miami every game

WHO is Cartier Martin and how did we get him?

Ton of touch fouls going against the Heat here in the last minutes. Gotta get the #s closer.

I hate playing the Heat. Bunch of worthless players getting preferential treatment from the refs. James is great, Bosh is very good, Wade is a good player with 80 year old knees; the rest of the team is ... bah. Yet they get calls like they're Michael Jordan.

Budenholzer should have gone ahead and gotten a tech when he got onto the ref for a really stupid 3pt foul call. Ray Allen misses a 3, Teague flies by with no initial contact, Allen twists and stumbles and gets rewarded with the call.

Teague did not play a bad game. Like every PG who plays the Heat, he was grabbed, pushed, hacked and slapped all game long - with no fouls. Notice he shot 13 times with no FTs. He came into the game averaging 8 FT/game. Famous hacker Mario Chalmers had one foul called against him the entire game.

So much for this game.

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It appears that Shelvin Mack has (temporarily?) passed Dennis the Menace in the rotation. Seems a bit of an overreaction to Schroder's recent struggles and Mack's good 2nd half last weekend in NY.

We really missed Paul Millsap's offense down the stretch. Our offense bogged down, leading to TERRIBLE, repeated turnovers, which led to easy Miami transition buckets.

We really need a wing scorer who can create shots for himself ala Jamal Crawford/Manu Ginobili. Perhaps Lou can fill that role in a while.

We compared ourselves to the best in the biz and were found wanting. But it was the best 16 point loss I've ever seen. As C-Webb said last night: The Hawks used to have their heads down, pout, play selfishly in these types of games.

Miami will have to deal with us again and soon. We'll be ready.

I want to see Horford v Josh on the block more than I've wanted anything in a long time.

Worth noting that Detroit's defense has suffered with the addition of Josh while Atlanta's assists and assist/turnover ratio has improved with Josh gone.

What's going on? Why is this thread semi-merged with the Heat game thread?

Anyways I'll unfortunately be missing most of this game to go full-on glutton at a Brazilian steakhouse, but hopefully I can catch the end of the game.

Hopefully fans will be classy and not boo Josh... even though it didn't quite work out, we definitely had our moments together. Heck, I'd suggest that we even cheer his jumpshot attempts

Josh with 2 "threes". Missed. Bwahahahahaha

and we are cheering every time he attempts a 3. Don't miss that at all. But im waiting on a highlight dunk (Ayon needs the pub).

From the middle of the 3rd qtr on, we just walked away from them. Good game by Teague, even though, at the end, he thought he was a one-man show.

Love Carroll's hustle and smarts. Scott is getting pretty confident in his stroke. Very quiet night from Horford, although his 5 blocks were pretty loud.

Fun part: we got the bad Josh.

Bad part: we're turning the ball over - all of a sudden - way too many times. Scott's confidence apparently extends to thinking he's a guard. At the end, against a trap, he dribbled upcourt rather than passing the ball, crossed the halfcourt line, got doubled in the corner and tried to go behind his back to get out. Lost it, of course.

Josh looked like he got a lil too much home cooking. Hard getting up for a game after your mom damn near puts you in a food coma.

Al had more blocks than the entire vaunted Pistons frontline and both he and Sap outproduced them in the scoring department. Keep it rolling into tomorrow night, gentlemen.

*Whoops, some reason I thought Detroit was the the B2B. Even better, Sap get's more time to rest his elbow and Louis should be available again.