Hawks: Let Bibby handle it

[HMFFL]

Turnover-prone team still getting used to new point guard

Sooner or later the concept will catch on. The Hawks will get used to allowing their point guard to run the offense.

That was the idea of adding 10-year veteran Mike Bibby in a trade over All-Star weekend. The deal with Sacramento in part required the Hawks to send two of their veteran point guards, Anthony Johnson and Tyronn Lue, to the Kings.

What they gave up in quantity, they made up in quality with Bibby, whose current team will face his former team for the second time in eight days Wednesday night at Philips Arena.

Yet the Hawks' carelessness with the ball has been scattershot since Bibby arrived, though his hand in that has been minimal.

The Hawks are averaging a jaw-dropping 21.2 turnovers in the five games since Bibby took over. Many of the turnovers were unforced and the result of others attempting to do more than necessary, despite Bibby being on the floor to take care of the ball.

Bibby defended his teammates, arguing that a lot of the errors are the result of good intentions gone awry.

"There's a lot of stuff going on out there," said Bibby, who has 15 of the Hawks' 106 turnovers in the past five games. "When shots we usually make nine times out of 10 aren't falling, you tend to get in a hurry. Everything kind of bleeds into that, but it's not like there's any one guy or one thing you can point to as to why we're turning the ball over so much."

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[Rip2137]

I would think that the hand and wrist injuries to Smith, Horford, and Williams have a little something to do with it. But they aren't the only ones turning it over.

[killbuckner]

I can see hand and wrist injuries leading to missed shots, but turnovers are generally just on poor decision making.

[Rip2137]

But if you watch them play, Josh is mostly turning it over trying to dribble the ball and fumbling it all over the place. That is definately because of the hand.

Horford is missing and fumbling some passes that he was catching with his good hands earlier this year.

Marvin...okay, his wrist is effecting his shooting. Maybe he would be able to go up stronger and stop being stripped low every play if he was healthy, but his wrist isn't really hurting his turnover numbers I don't believe, I will agree with you there.

But with Smith especially, the injury is has been the cause of alot of his turnovers...although if history tells us anything, he would have found another way to turn it over anyway. Just not as many times.

[Sultanofatl]

you know articles such as these make me wonder what we do in practice.......I mean every game it seems like this might be the first time groups of our players have been on the court together.....reminds me of the falcons last year......I thought many of times "they look like they've never run this play before"......and what do you know come to find out a lot of times they hadn't........I used to be a Woodson apologist but.....now I just think this guy is far more of the problem than the solution.

[smabie]

Bibby had 1.5 off day practices with the Hawks. While I'm definitely curious as to how many plays Woodson's playbook contains (The JJ Iso Play, The Smooth at the Wing in 3-Point Land Play, and the Smooth at Point Forward Platy are the only three I can think of off the top of my head), Bibby hasn't had enough of a chance to learn the play nomenclature, much less the tendencies of his teammates. Half of the turnovers -- the ones Bibby's involved in, anyway -- seem to be either Bibby passing where he expected someone to be, or someone getting a pass that they weren't expecting (Bibby's no-looks are wicked). They've now got a series of games with days off in between, so I expect the TOs to go down significantly in the next week, and for Woodson's influence on the play-calling to be greatly reduced (assuming he's not fired beforehand).

[Rip2137]

Yeah, most of Bibby's are of the "we don't know each other variety". And his no looks are throwing people off something fierce. But they will have to learn just like new suns players have to learn to always be ready for the ball when on the court with Nash.

[conleyorbust]

Yeah, most of Bibby's are of the "we don't know each other variety". And his no looks are throwing people off something fierce. But they will have to learn just like new suns players have to learn to always be ready for the ball when on the court with Nash.

I can't imagine what it would be like for Josh^2/Marv/Al to play with Nash after having their whole careers here with Ivey, Lue, and AJ. They'd just be so lost.

[JoshB914]

Bibby has had some turnovers because our players can't believe we actually have a PG that can get it to them in certain positions. Bibby isn't even a great passing PG, but he is such an upgrade from what we had before. There have been plenty of times where he's thrown the ball away or a guy has fumbled it because he wasn't expecting such a good pass. It's comical actually.

Then there have been turnovers just from not knowing each other, that will come around.