They need to continue to rebound and defend as if winning games is directly related to them doing so……….because it is. :)

He had his first really poor game against Portland, and I thought that and some horrific officiating kept the Hawks from running out to a 7-10 point lead in the first half.

I think all the rest of the stats are going to be there, or close, but for the Hawks to continue to play at an elite level, they need Crawford to continue to be an efficient closer.

The other thing we saw against Portland is that when Crawford is not shooting well, he cannot be in the game. With Marvin’s lost offense, not having Crawford down the stretch to make the defense honest will force Joe to do what he did too many times. We need Joe playing less minutes now, so he will be fresh for the playoffs.

I kind of like leading the East.

You know how I feel about PER and +/- or whatever. I don’t understand it. That being said, I decided prior to the season that I’m not going to get overly emotional about Jamal’s bad games because if you know anything about Jamal’s career you know that he’s either on or off. I think we should all acknowledge and accept that so that we don’t go insane when he scores 25 one night then 9 the next night. Its just who he is.

But i am starting to notice that each key player gives the team something important on any given night. marvs defense, bibbys t.o. ratio, jamals ability to score on any and everyone, of course al’s and smooth’s ability to rebound hard and make the paint a dangerous place for opposing teams on both sides of the court. zaza is always zaza which means he comes in and gives whats needed whether it is a bucket or a steal. Its hard to say which stat is more important. and I probably wont be able to til 25 games

As in healthy players. That number gets low, and all other numbers follows. It means that hits has been taken by starters or rotational subs.

How often last year was 12 healthy on gameday. Someone crunch those numbers for me. Not saying a replacement cant come in and improve or balance a stat or two, but there will be drawbacks.

As my man “Hubie Brown” might say….“I mean, come on. This is the NBA. You need healthy players on your roster. Ha!”

Hawks FT percentage last year versus this year. Outside of Josh (who seems more relaxed at the line), the team seems to be making them more. This was always my big pet peeve. Even Zaza is shooting 81%. Nice improvement.

And Woodson continue to keep the deep rotation most nights to avoid any injuries.

One of the reasons for our success that you don’t see on the box score is how healthy our team has been so far. We won’t drop lousy back-to-back losses to the Nets if Josh is healthy, for example. I would also argue that is how we are in front of Orlando (Jameer gone, VC ankle, and Reshard suspended), Cleveland (Delonte being clinically psycho), and Boston (fat baby and Pierce).

I don’t like PER but here’s the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Efficiency_Rating

but interesting. Sheed credits the hawks for using the iso. This was me wondering in the green world known as celticsblog. http://www.celticsblog.com/2009/11/14/1156743/celtics-outrebounded-outplayed-in

11ppg from Marv