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Look, neither guy should get suspended. And I loved Zaza standing up to KG, that was a great moment. As I wrote after game 2, everyone on that hawks team was peeing their pants except for Horford - I liked that they stood up for themselves in Games 3 and 4, I gained a lot of respect for those guys.

When I was at Game 2 and KG was doing his Intimidation Routine and psyching out the Hawks, I remember the Jbug and I both wondered why the Hawks didn't stand up to him - really, was KG going to punch them out? Of course not. It made no sense. Nobody should ever be able to intimidate other players in a playoff series when you'd get suspended for 2 weeks for throwing a punch. I think the Hawks realized that between Game 2 and Game 3.

A lot of stuff on the series. I don't think it is an Insider thing (didn't ask for a login). Those are two snippets that I thought were interesting.

I read Simmons, but he has gotten completely out of control with his Boston stuff. I mean the guy wrote an entire column on the freaking Boston Bruins a couple of weeks ago.

He doesn't say much about the Hawks, a lot about the Celtics though. He says that Doc messed up a lot and Posey should have been on Johnson, he says Rondo should be playing more, and he says that KG should be dominating in the post.

I love how in that same chat he ridicules the Hawks fans as bandwagoners yet interestingly fails to mention that these Hawks beat Boston in avg attendence last season when both teams were in the lotto.

betta1 wrote:I love how in that same chat he ridicules the Hawks fans as bandwagoners yet interestingly fails to mention that these Hawks beat Boston in avg attendence last season when both teams were in the lotto.

I'm not trying to start a war here but that's not true at least according to your very own Retrovision.

2007-2008 Season
Boston 18,624 100.0
Atlanta 16,280 86.9

2006-2007 Season
Boston 16,843 85.9
Atlanta 15,594 78.0

2005-2006 Season
Boston 16,890 86.2
Atlanta 15,068 75.3

http://realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php? ... c&start=60

It sure looks like Boston has averaged more in attendance over the last 3 seasons.

So what if Hawks fans are bandwagoners? Nearly all fan bases would dissapear after suffering through the past few years. I don't see what the big deal is. I want as many on the bandwagon as possible!

I wonder what his source was.

Here's mine: http://www.insidehoops.com/attendance.shtml

2006-07 NBA ATTENDANCE:
17 Atlanta 17,066
18 Boston 17,034

OK, my bad...those figures are only through mid season. Boston did avg a little more that year.

Celtics have far more die hards than we do. That's just how Boston sports is. They love to make a big deal about their fan base and how rabid they are, but honestly who cares?

In any case, neither team's fanbase really has any right to call the other bandwagon jumpers by looking at those number comparisons.

betta1 wrote:In any case, neither team's fanbase really has any right to call the other bandwagon jumpers by looking at those number comparisons.

I completely agree. There were a lot more casual fans at games this year than last but there were still a lot of fans watching that crappy team play. The fact is, any winning is going to attrack more bandwagon fans. Obvious the fans who spend lots of time at RealGM cannot be considered bandwagon fans. I think that's why some of us took acception to what Bibby said.

It's all good though. This has sure been an exciting/frustrating series and I expect more to come. I just wanted to clarify a few things here.

I wouldn't be quoting attendance figures in the Hawks favor. A lot of our paid attendance doesn't actually attend during the regular season, which makes the arena look quite vacant. Although they might start attentding soon. Plenty of room on the bandwagon, come aboard.

I also won't attack Boston fans for not attending last year. They weren't given much reason to attend. Games aren't cheap and if your team isn't even trying to put a good product on the floor why spend your hard earned cash on them. For instance, I stopped attending Hawks games when the team acquired JR Rider.

Also, I called and renewed my season tickets for the 4th time in the last 5 years (in 2006 BK really pissed me off). I want to thank Michael Jordan for hiring Larry Brown. I'd been sweating those rumors a lot.

I actually agree with some of Simmons assessments. Doc Rivers coaching definitely contributed to Hawks win. His substition patterns were confusing. However, I wouldn't have been so sure about Posey being able to stop Joe though. On several of those plays in the fourth he passed 4 Celtics on the way to the hoop. Allen was the first defender, but help out guys didn't have much affect.

I think Simmons was looking at it if were some video game or something. Ray Allen forced Joe to take tough shots and the Celtics help defense was good....the problem was that Joe was making tough shots. It wasn't like he was getting easy dunks at the basket or wide open three pointers(outside of the step back 3 on Powe). I also think the Celtics made us play their game which was a slow grind it out game. In game 3 the Hawks got a ton of 3s in transition and alot of momentum changing dunks which are really worth more than 2 points IMO. I think Chil had the only noticeable momentum changing dunk and that was in the 1st quarter. I think the biggest problem with Doc Rivers is that

1. The Celtics need to stick with a backup big man...whether it be Powe/Big Baby/Brown. It's not a good idea to start tinkering with the rotation during the playoffs. Atleast Woody has stuck with a 7-8 man rotation.

2. The Celtics are making the mistake with trying to "match up" with an inferior team by playing small ball(ala Avery)l. When the Celtics go small at the end of games the Hawks have a huge athletic/length advantage and it showed by how many offensive rebounds we got in that 4th quarter. There's no point of Posey being on the floor at the end especially if he's not going to guard Joe. They should really be playing another big man alongside KG to help protect the basket and get rebounds.

Just finished reading that magnum opus. Hilarious. Seriously, I was giggling almost half the time reading through that. The bitterness was so thick, you could almost see him scowling while he came up with sarcastic remarks.

It's funny how every fan blames their coach when their players take a dump on the court. I guess everyone needs a scapegoat.

HoopsGuru25 wrote:
2. The Celtics are making the mistake with trying to "match up" with an inferior team by playing small ball(ala Avery)l. When the Celtics go small at the end of games the Hawks have a huge athletic/length advantage and it showed by how many offensive rebounds we got in that 4th quarter. There's no point of Posey being on the floor at the end especially if he's not going to guard Joe. They should really be playing another big man alongside KG to help protect the basket and get rebounds.

He wasn't completely off... Having Posey on the floor should have opened things up a bit and kept Smith from going swat-crazy like he had in the first half, Posey did knock down a couple of tough 3s too.

The rest of those guys just seemed a little shook out there.

LL Cool Scott wrote:Just finished reading that magnum opus. Hilarious. Seriously, I was giggling almost half the time reading through that. The bitterness was so thick, you could almost see him scowling while he came up with sarcastic remarks.

It's funny how every fan blames their coach when their players take a dump on the court. I guess everyone needs a scapegoat.

My favorite part was when he said that you could tell who was going to win game 3 when you saw who the refs were... because everyon knows that 66 win teams with 3 marketable stars are going to get shafted by the officiating crew

I have to say, this has been a pretty much perfectly officiated series. Yeah, there are some calls here and there that should have been called (there seems to be ALOT of over the backs on both ends honestly) but it has been pretty eveningly called throughout.

Rip2137 wrote:I have to say, this has been a pretty much perfectly officiated series. Yeah, there are some calls here and there that should have been called (there seems to be ALOT of over the backs on both ends honestly) but it has been pretty eveningly called throughout.

Right, well he didn't complain about any calls in particular. He just said that he knew they'd lose because of the refs.

Convincing argument on his part.[/i]

Yeah, but there are threads over on the boston board about how bad the refs were when the refs have been anything but in this series.