He tops my list of young point guards the Hawks could reasonably acquire (now that Larry Brown has figured out a way to make Raymond Felton useful in Charlotte) on days when I pretend I live in a world where the Hawks head coach would use a point guard under the age of 30 with less than 8 years of experience.

I expect the loss tonight. We are a great rebounding team, but all of that is based on the shoulders of Przybilla and Oden.

The media is down on Oden, looking at the raw stats, but his effect on the games has been enormous. We’ve gone from one of the worst teams in the league at rebounding to being in the top two, switching places with Boston for the top spot every few games.

Without his interior presence, we become a jump shooting team that can’t rebound. Because of our jump shooting status, rebounding is absolutely essential. If the Hawks win the rebounding war, they win this game.

This is all with one caveat. The Blazers didn’t make a deal at the deadline, but one was expected. Because of this, the Blazers have been antsy as of late, not showing focus and nearly losing to inferior teams. Pritchard’s vote of confidence in his young guys could result in a huge effort tonight.

I still expect a loss tonight. Greg hides a lot of our flaws… which will be exacerbated by playing an athletic team like Atlanta.

In recent weeks, the Hawks have shown two things: they can beat anyone when they are on (even if the other team is too) and lose to anyone when they are not (even if the other team isn’t either). They have the true blessing and curse of being able to beat another teams best and worst. So here is rooting for their best tonight.

Sounds just like the Blazers. Young teams are at least always exciting.

HAWKS WILL GET TAIL FEATHERS TRAIL-BLAZED!!!

Hawks’ fans should be worried about this game for at least a few reasons not previously mentioned:

1) Recalling last year’s game at Phillip’s Arena that went to OT with neither Oden’s presence nor significant impact from Rudy F. Portland won that game with the dual threat of Brandon Roy, who drove the paint uncontested all night. And while Hawks’ defense stayed asleep, Travis Outlaw was drilling everything from outside including 3’s like my dentist hits nerves. It looked like a shootaround and should have never gone to OT, let alone a Blazer win. All that said, Portland is much stronger and playing more focused now….AND…

2) With nothing else for Portland residents to do this time of year, Trailblazer home games have been total sellouts since Bill Walton played there, so the Hawks will have Portland’s “BIG 6th man-in-the-stands” at the Rose Garden to overcome.

As someone in the blog stated, "Miracles still happen", and that’s what it will take since the Hawks haven’t exactly had an impressive performance lately…Maybe they’ll reverse the southerly trend of they’re before they’re return charter heads this way.

Peace,

AC (aka, "Arm Chair").

10:10 PM ET – 05.10 GMT
Atlanta Hawks – Portland Trail Blazers

LIVE

http://www.iddaliyim.tr.gg

Two thoughts heading in

1) The less we see of Solomon Jones, the better (for various reasons, most of you know why).

2) Josh Smith has been a different player since Horford came back. You can see it in almost every aspect of the game. He WAS having a great stretch. He’s reverted back to taking that jumpshot, only now it’s mostly right inside the three point line. His defense and rebounding have really fallen off-as if he expects Al to take over for him, like it’s a one-man job.

At some point, he’s going to wake up-he always does in the second half of the year. I think you maybe started to see this during the fourth quarter of the Sacramento game. Now, needless to say, Sacramento isn’t a very good team, but…Josh HAS to be a presence on the defensive end of the floor, or this team isn’t going anywhere as currently constructed.

they rarely get beat on the boards with him. It’s a crapshoot with him injured.

Almost guaranteed to make you regret opening your last beer in the fourth quarter.