Hawks 94 Timberwolves 86, or a game to blaspheme.

by hawksdawgs on Feb 5, 2009 9:11 AM EST in Game Recaps Comment 1 comment

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I have some good news for Get Swoll Yunel who left this comment in the game thread.

Is it just me

Or do the Hawks seem to be operating much more efficiently on offense without Big Joe in there?

Blasphemy!

Great news Get Swoll. Very, very difficult to blaspheme as a Hawks fan. When your team has not been truly successful since oh this..

...it is hard for fans to jump on the stock "how dare you say that for the only thing that is working" fan speak. Because any other Hawk fan can say, "working toward what exactly?" The best "that" has worked to so far is a first round playoff loss whatever "that" is.

So I am fine with raising the question. And even when I have critiqued Joe in the past, I have tried to do it while showing my close to undying love for him at the same time.

And this topic is much easier, because it is more than a Joe Johnson problem. It is a team problem. From Maurice Evans all the way up to Mike Woodson. The Hawks can't defer to Joe in the fourth quarter simply because he is the best player. We have more than adquate players that cause mismatches on the floor in nearly every five man configuration Woodson throws out there.

Without Joe last night, Marvin had the mismatch. He could not be guarded. So with the game on the line, the Hawks went to him twice. Once getting two free throws out of him and once getting an assists on a Mike Bibby three pointer.

I can't remember the last time Mike Woodson exploited an offensive match up in the fourth quarter. Heck really any quarter.

I would never say the Hawks are better off without Joe Johnson. And lets get serious, even if this is a better Timberwolves team they still are the Timberwolves (and yes I realize people said that about the Hawks up until about 8 games ago). And obviously on many nights, Joe is the best option, but these games show how truly dumb the idea that for at least one quarter a game Joe is the only option.

I personally don't have time to talk about how:

much I am enjoying Acie's 10-14 minute stints.
Al looks to be pretty rusty coming back.
the Hawks are game breakingly bad at free throws.
Mo Evans seems lost.
Zaza plays well but never sees the fourth quarter...even when he starts.
the Hawks love large scoring droughts and it is freaking out Sekou.

But I may later or you can now in the comments.

Go Hawks!

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“The Hawks can’t defer to Joe in the fourth quarter simply because he is the best player. We have more than adquate players that cause mismatches on the floor in nearly every five man configuration Woodson throws out there.”

That statement sums up my feelings on the matter beautifully. I love Joe as well, but the fact of the matter is the guy has had a couple of stretches this season where he clearly hasn’t been on his game at all(probably due to fatigue) and our offense doesn’t seem to adjust to this problem in any way. And when we lose games because of it, we aways seem to get some post-game quote from Woody implying that our guys “weren’t playing intense enough on defense” or something to that effect.

I’d like to see this team try and make a move to alleviate some of the pressure that’s always on Joe’s shoulders (as well as to add to the staggering lack of depth we have at the bigs), but we seem to have nothing in trading chips (man that Speedy contract was bad) and our ownership continues to be a joke,

At this point, it seems to me we’re eventually headed (best case) for a very Hawks-esque second-round exit…

by get swoll yunel on Feb 6, 2009 12:12 AM EST reply actions