Water damage to practice facility adds to woes
Posted: Wed Jan 9, 2008 4:20 pm
Team, in four-game skid, loses use of practice court
While it's understandable for a team to take drastic measures to try and end a four-game losing streak, what the Hawks did for practice Tuesday has to be considered a bit extreme.
But there they were on the court at Morehouse College's Forbes Arena, finishing up their preparations for tonight's game against Cleveland at Philips Arena.
It's one thing to go back and study your mistakes, but going back to school?
"We really had no choice," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said with a crooked smile. "But we can't thank the good folks here [at Morehouse] enough for allowing us to use their facility because we're in dire straights right now with our practice facility currently not available."
Water flooded the Hawks' practice court late last week, causing major damage to the floor and forcing the Hawks to find a place to work for, what Woodson called, the "foreseeable future."
"We've got a lot of water underneath that [practice] floor," Woodson said. "So we'll have to let the arena people work things out and do what we have to do in the meantime."
The Hawks will be able to use the main arena floor on days when there isn't a hockey game or another event scheduled at Philips. On the other days, though, they'll be forced to return to school to get their work done.
"The rims are the same height and the balls bounce the same," forward Josh Smith said as he headed to the bus that took the Hawks the short distance from the locker room at Philips to the Morehouse campus. "This isn't even an inconvenience really. Besides, it's good to get us on that bus while we're in town. It's almost like a road game."
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