Game Thread: Hawks at Suns: Back to Scene of Crime

[Superiorblogman]

Good game for Josh, Willie, Teague, and Zaza. We don't win this game without the contributions of Jeff and Zaza. I watched the whole game and Teague was the only one ready to play from the jump offensively and Zaza was his running mate. Then Josh got going and Willie was his running mate. Everyone else just filled out the 5 on the floor at certain times.

[dannyc84]

Smith had a good game, but at the same time you gotta admit he did take alot of stupid shots.

[parson]

I don't care if Josh is hitting those 3s, I don't care that he's our leading rebounder, I don't care that he's our leading scorer, I want to strangle him for refusing to throw an outlet pass. PHO is failing right now, yet each time Josh rebounds, he dribbles aimlessly up the court. It's as if he is trying to make a point. All he's doing is squandering our opportunities while PHO is struggling.

Josh Smith could drop 60 points on 20/20 shooting get 30 boards and 20 assist.


And the game thread would still be full of you bitching NON STOP about josh smith.

Smith was a beast tonight

He was 12-23 against Channing Frye and Markieff Morris. Good game against lousy competition. He's remarkably physically gifted but with the basketball IQ of a block of wood. By the way, if he'd posted his man up down low, he might have gotten that 20 for 20, considering how weak they were against him. He could do anything he wanted to them, he was that much stronger.

Listen, bad basketball is bad basketball. Josh Smith taking the rebound and dribbling slowly up the court, then MAYBE giving the ball to the PG or maybe playing PG himself is bad basketball. PFs need to rebound the ball, pass it quickly out to the PG, then run downcourt.

We didn't win tonight because we played good basketball - we won because PHO (which had been whupping us) ran out of steam.

[Superiorblogman]

Josh Smith: 29, 15, 7

Outstanding!

Sorry, not buying. His competition stinks. Zaza's shielding Gortat off of the rebounds, leaving Josh against ... not much.

It is not that his competition stinks it is more that I am never going to be a fan of winning or losing with Josh jumpers because it is proven that it will not be sustained, the success that is.

[parson]

Good game for Josh, Willie, Teague, and Zaza. We don't win this game without the contributions of Jeff and Zaza. I watched the whole game and Teague was the only one ready to play from the jump offensively and Zaza was his running mate. Then Josh got going and Willie was his running mate. Everyone else just filled out the 5 on the floor at certain times.

I agree with you, especially about Teague.

Which is why I wonder why Drew sat him so long. Hard on a kid's confidence, Drew is.

[Superiorblogman]

Good game for Josh, Willie, Teague, and Zaza. We don't win this game without the contributions of Jeff and Zaza. I watched the whole game and Teague was the only one ready to play from the jump offensively and Zaza was his running mate. Then Josh got going and Willie was his running mate. Everyone else just filled out the 5 on the floor at certain times.

I agree with you, especially about Teague.

Which is why I wonder why Drew sat him so long. Hard on a kid's confidence, Drew is.

Personally I don't care because we won and Teague has to be smart, strong, and tough enough to know he contributed and we don't win that game without his efforts. We only won by 2 pts. We finished games with Bibby, Jamal, and Joe the last couple of years. Simply so Bibby could make a stand still wide open 3 from time to time, but even the incompetent front office that we have knew that the way we were winning was fool's gold. It was really Josh and Willie down the stretch with 3 more to fill the 5 out. Rad Vlad made a shot, Joe made one, Kirk made one. That's all we needed from those 3. Sometimes a young guy like Teague may try to do too much so it is cool to have Kirk in when not much is needed to kind of babysit. All that said, I really thought Teague should have been in over Joe and I have been thinking for a while that Willie Green is frequently a better option than Joe, but that would take some real big testicles and LD does not have those. On the other hand, my problem is when Teague has it going like the 1st quarter he still comes out. It needs to be both ways, but if what does not kill you only makes you stronger, he will be pretty damn strong before you know it.

[evildallas]

I don't think Jeff will take it hard. First he's used to Drew's treatment by now and he's not totally crumbled. Second Drew has establish that he play a lineup by feel. He stuck with Green and Radmanovic down the stretch. If you are going to worry about someone it might be Marvin. He gets to ride the pines a lot. We won and I move on.

As for Josh wanting to run the break. It sometimes frustrates me, but when I see the mistakes made by other players on the break like Joe, Jeff and Kirk I calm down a bit. The bottom line is we have a sloppy, undisciplined team. What do you expect when the head coach was promoted from his position as assistant coach/friend of the players? I'm not sure the current lineup can ever be whipped into shape but as I never expect an coach with authority to get hired it is a moot point.

[Superiorblogman]

I don't think Jeff will take it hard. First he's used to Drew's treatment by now and he's not totally crumbled. Second Drew has establish that he play a lineup by feel. He stuck with Green and Radmanovic down the stretch. If you are going to worry about someone it might be Marvin. He gets to ride the pines a lot. We won and I move on.

As for Josh wanting to run the break. It sometimes frustrates me, but when I see the mistakes made by other players on the break like Joe, Jeff and Kirk I calm down a bit. The bottom line is we have a sloppy, undisciplined team. What do you expect when the head coach was promoted from his position as assistant coach/friend of the players? I'm not sure the current lineup can ever be whipped into shape but as I never expect an coach with authority to get hired it is a moot point.

We are not watching the same Drew. Drew frequently puts Kirk in at the same time no matter what Jeff is doing. Like tonight Teague has 9 in the 1st quarter and no-one else doing anything but Drew still takes him out. That assessment of yours is way off and the assessment about others making mistakes on the break is off also, because all the others you noted are suppose to handle it all the time because they are guards. It is not about mistakes it is about defining roles. Finishers need to finish and that is what Josh needs to be.

[fullcourt]

Joe's name might be on the lease, but the Hawks belong to Josh Smith, this is his team

he is not only becoming the best player on the club, but he is by far the most important player.

Josh is running away with the title, Best PF in the East.

Josh/Joe or Josh/Horford is a strong playoff team

Joe/Horford is a lottery team.

[Superiorblogman]

Phoenix is not a playoff team. How does Josh having a good game against a losing team make him the best PF in the East or the leader of this team. Leaders step forward during tough times and lead. Josh is not that. He does the same dumb stuff every night and it does not work most nights. The few nights it works you guys get down on your knees and pleasure him.

[Years80HAWKS]

This is a good win for me. Phoenix was not playing bad lately and it is always important to get a win on the road and after consecutive games, although they are older and also played the night before.

I still have to watch the game (which I will do along the day), but I believe LD cannot force Josh to play so many minutes every game, as he is doing lately. He will run out of gas sooner rather tahn later.
But this, again, is a consequence of how bad this roster was made. We have Tegue, Hinrich, Pargo, Green, JJ, Stackhouse and even McGrady to play the 2-3, with just Josh, Zaza, Dampier and Radmanovic to play the 4-5, which sound like a joke. Stackhouse is not playing. Ever plays. Pargo hardly gets playing time. So, I cannot understand how it took us three weeks to get Dampier. But I believe we lack a big since the beginning of the RS. The roster would be much better had we have Benson or any other big helping out from the start.

[fullcourt]

This is a good win for me. Phoenix was not playing bad lately and it is always important to get a win on the road and after consecutive games, although they are older and also played the night before.

I still have to watch the game (which I will do along the day), but I believe LD cannot force Josh to play so many minutes every game, as he is doing lately. He will run out of gas sooner rather tahn later.
But this, again, is a consequence of how bad this roster was made. We have Tegue, Hinrich, Pargo, Green, JJ, Stackhouse and even McGrady to play the 2-3, with just Josh, Zaza, Dampier and Radmanovic to play the 4-5, which sound like a joke. Stackhouse is not playing. Ever plays. Pargo hardly gets playing time. So, I cannot understand how it took us three weeks to get Dampier. But I believe we lack a big since the beginning of the RS. The roster would be much better had we have Benson or any other big helping out from the start.

exactly, its amazing that Josh is dominating with such little help. Blake has CP and Jordan, Love has Rubio, Gasol has Kobe, and Josh is basically doing it all by himself and still being one of the top PFs in the NBA and the best PF in the East.

it is no surprise what Josh did tonight, like any legit NBA star, they always have a chip on their shoulder after a bad game. Josh had a bad game against the Heat and then he shows up against the Lakers and now the Suns and totally dominates them.

[Rip2137]

It was a good win for the Hawks that Larry Drew almost gave away.

Teague should have been in the game in the 3rd and 4th quarter. Kirk Hinrich almost lost the game with his multiple possessions of being the ONLY one touching the ball, over dribbling and missing the shot. Defensively, he didn't do anything Jeff didn't do. The switch to Zone is what slowed the suns down, not Kirks D.

Also, Josh had scored 3 times in a row with ease on the Suns front line, so of course the next 4 plays were Kirk dribbling for 20 seconds and shooting, Joe dribbling for 21 seconds and shooting and Joe dribbling for 18 seconds and shooting.

Willie Green was great on both ends.

As for Josh, its funny how people want to discount his game as "they aren't that good". When he has a bad game you flip out but a good game is just "eh". Its just as silly as the people claiming he is the best PF in the east after a game like this. Its basketball. Guys have good games, bad games, great games and horrible games. SUPERSTARS have consistantly good/great games with the occasional stinker, but I don't think anyone is calling Josh a superstar. Well...some people are...and those people are wrong.

[parson]

its amazing that Josh is dominating with such little help.

Well, Zaza did such a great job of muscling Gortat out of the picture that Josh only had to compete with Channing Frye for rebounds. He owes Zaza a little thanks for that.

And Josh really dominated the ball, especially at the end, which makes it hard for the other guys to help him in the scoring department - 23 shots, know-whut-I-mean? He thought he was our PG, our SG ... he thought he was our entire team. Don't criticize the rest of the team when Josh gets the rebound (aided by Zaza), Josh (slowly) dribbles upcourt, Josh stands at the top of the circle and Josh goes a-looking for the tough pass when a simple pass would have been better or Josh takes a 3 (or long 2). I saw Hinrich - several times - run over to Josh for the ball on the break, only to be refused because Josh wanted to play PG.

I know it seems I'm hating on Josh. I'm not. He played great but he played stupid. Those who are mad at me for complaining - do you have any idea how many of our fastbreaks Josh gave away by not outletting the ball? PHO was gassed, Josh was getting (mostly long) rebounds, yet he refused to start the fastbreak by passing the ball down the court to the REAL PGs. We could have run them out of the building. We won because Josh's jumper was falling and because PHO got too tired to play - they were on the last night of a 3-game stretch. We cannot depend on his outside shot every game, he's proven that. Should our team only look good when Josh's shot is falling? What about the other players? Do they get to do more than support him?

[HMFFL]

Atlanta and Phoenix both had 42 points in the paint.

I expect us to have an edge over a team like Phoenix inside but we failed to utilize it. Drew and our players must take advantage of our opponents weakness and especially since we are down a key player like Horford.

[Rip2137]

Phoenix is a pick and roll team so I figured they would score more in the paint honestly.