RealGM

I mean, my goodness!!! Joe finally shows life early in the game, and we all would have figured that to equal a big boost. But in true Hawks' fashion of ALWAYS giving us the bad unexpected when we expect good. The rest of the guys didn't respond until the 4th.

Yeah...the undeniable truth is our POOR ENERGY in the 1st half really caused us this game. Period. BUT!!! When a little light was shed on the Hawks, and we made this into a new game, the DAMN TURNOVERS killed us a 2nd time! Joe led us with 8 assists - but he had 8 TURNOVERS. Now, true enough the hurt us big, but I saw at least 4 of those caused by the Hawks playing flat and Joe being aggressive (FINALLY) just simply forced a little too much. The rest was cause by E. Snow (be it, clean swipes and the reaching fouls).

But as the topic title states, "Shooting Kills Us again" simply because CLE buried 3s and had the floor spread wide open every time they slowed down and all the pressure to cover shooters burned the HAWKS energy up easily. AND on the flip side the Hawks and their lack of 3PT shooters allowed CLE to play a more compact "D" and forced us into more turnovers when we forced the issue.

The guys HAVE TO - HAVE TO - HAVE TO - ESTABLISH A RUNNING TEMPO EARLY and maintain it throughout the game!!! That's our strength and our only advantage over "most" of the teams we play.

Once again, Joe Johnson comes up lame in the 4th?

We've read this story more than a few times this season.

The officials were letting Eric Snow hack at everything. In all fairness except for 1 specific call I think they were letting them play on both ends. What was critical was that the Hawks didn't adjust to the way it was getting called. I couldn't count the number of Joe iso's in the game that resulted in the ball getting knocked loose without a shot. Joe penetrating on Snow was a losing proposition in the 4th.

When you let a guy like Newble, guarded by the so called great defender J. Smith, have a 18/8 night, your team should lose. Again, we came out slow and flat against a team missing key pieces in the paint. Our strategy has been wrong in my opinion. You do not double players on the top of the key. We did it against Roy, they killed us with 3s, we did again against Kobe , they shot lights out from 3 pt range. You do that against Lebron, it makes role players look great. But I still think more important than a shooter and a big, we need a PG that can give this team an identity. Everyone knows we got to run, but our PGs just can't make this team play like that. Neither our coaches.

Ira was the open man by design tonight and hit his shots.

This isn't a case where you can take a shot at Josh Smiths defense.

ACE_reppin_ATL wrote:...But as the topic title states, "Shooting Kills Us again" simply because CLE buried 3s...

Two examples in video:
Link (wmv).

Once again (last examples I posted was against POR), the other team has fun with our defense...and hits 3s.