The Argument for Woody

[AkelaLoneWolf]

If Woodson is fired, what do you think about Sam Mitchell being the replacement?
It would be a good situation for the players, as he's definitely a young player's coach. He's there to give you the pat on the back or the kick in the pants they need. His weak point is strategy but your team doesn't need that right now anyways. They need to be molded into a cohesive unit.
It would definitely be a good situation for Sam as he has family in Atlanta, I believe and I don't think Toronto management would be too bothered if the Hawks tried to woo him.

[HoopsGuru25]

Saw this on Hawksquawk. I was waiting for a writer(other than Sekou)to call Woodson out for his one of a kind coaching philosophy he used this year despite only having 1 quality bench player.

Worst Tactic: Atlanta's two fouls and you're out
I still don't know what the Hawks were thinking by yanking all their players as soon as they got two fouls in the Boston series. The idea behind pulling players with foul trouble is that they won't foul out late in the game, or stop defending if they know they're about to get No. 6. Well, Atlanta turned that theory on its head in the first round by taking any player with two fouls out of the game for the rest of the half.

First off, this can have its own unintended consequences -- if a player picks up a foul a minute into the game, how much D do you think he'll play if he knows a quick No. 2 means 23 minutes of pine time? But more important, the penalty of fouling out is that a team doesn't get the player's services for the rest of the game. So taking them out so early effectively "fouls them out" in the first half; instead of the possibility of a player missing time later, he's definitely missing that time early on.

Fortunately for the Hawks, none of their losses were close, so the strategy didn't end up costing them. That didn't make it any smarter, though.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2 ... rds_080516

[JoshB914]

Yeah, someone needs to explain to Woody how dumb that is. Especially for vets like Joe who know how to play with fouls.

[conleyorbust]

^yeah, that is a Hollinger peice and he has been on Woody for that for a while now.