Game Thread #20: Atlanta at Houston, December 9th

3 Josh Smith jump shots already, the last occurring as he was trying to feed Marvin Williams in the post.

Perhaps this should go in the Flip Murray thread from this morning. Why ask your players to do the things they do well? Where’s the degree of difficulty in that?

a good example of why Joe Johnson doesn’t shoot a huge number of free throws. He beats Artest off the dribble but when Johnson leaves his feet at the basket area, he double-clutches and falls away rather than attack and draw contact. Fortunately for Johnson, the referees adjudge either Von Wafer or Carl Landry to have fouled him, but Johnson did little to finish and draw that foul.

Compare and contrast this with Wade, Pierce, etc.

does not begin until :13 is left on the shot clock as Flip Murray dribbles for 7 seconds before Acie Law comes to get the ball to run a set, then waits 4 more more seconds for Murray to jog into position to initiate the play.

the Josh Smith jump shot log after this one.

Not sure if the last one, with 5:31 remaining in the game, can be counted as a jump shot. Either way, he took it from about 5 feet, and shorted it by a foot.

Is he just forcing things right now, or is this poor fourth quarter due to his ankle injury setting back his conditioning?

Josh Smith’s +3 really means a lot in this game. Defensively, he played a great game, as usual. But his offense was horrible in the first quarter, and horrible again in the fourth quarter. Houston had already started making a run when he was yanked, and if he had been in for the duration of that run, he’d probably have been -7.