Miami Heat 94, Atlanta Hawks 76 or Jamal Crawford for sixth man of the year
by hawksdawgs on Feb 10, 2010 11:02 PM EST
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PrintYou know what I was wondering today? What five days of crappy would taste like. I guess now I will know. Thanks Hawks. Tonight, the Heat played better defense, shot better, and looked like they actually thought they were better for nearly ever bit of the 48 minutes.
Examples abound, but here is one. To understand it, you have to start with the Hawks thinking and probably deserving some foul calls in the second half. That is a fine fact. It had nothing to do with the game's results, but a perfectly reasonable feeling. Yet despite those "bad" no calls, the Hawks had fewer personal fouls than the Heat (13 to 18) and two of those thirteen came on a Bibby "get me the hell out of this game" reach in and Mario West three point foul on Wade. Both of those came with under a minute to go. So eleven fouls in 47 minutes. The Hawks could not have fouled out two guys. That was not lacking toughness, that was being so far away from guys they did not have a chance to foul. I have never seen so many wide open people five feet from the rim. I would say the Hawks were playing a defense that dared the Heat to dunk if they were not also daring them to shoot threes .....and mid range jumpers.
Jamal's sixth man candidacy just received a lift
The Hawks desperately missed Zaza Pachulia and Jamal Crawford. Zaza has not been great this year, but he is an all-pro next to Collins. I struggle to see how Randolph Morris is worse than Collins. Not every night of course, but I can say tonight, I would have been as useful as Collins. I am 5'11'', and in pick games, people make fun of me. And I am not exaggerating. I wish I was, but I am not. Outside the requisite moving from one end of the court to the other, I think Jason took three steps tonight. To think he only played four minutes.
On the other side of things, the Hawks desperately needed a shot maker. A guy to loosen up a very good defense. Crawford has shown an ability to do that against anyone, and he has shown an ability to do that at a youtube level against the Heat. Jamal would have helped. Shoot, we needed both Zaza and Jamal. It was clear. But you don't get blown out by 18 at home. That is embarrassing. Fine to chuck up a missed opportunity loss due to an injury, but Atlanta got dominated. The Hawks are the better team, and they played like a team that planned to flip a switch when it counted. They are not that good. Ever. And they certainly are not that good with our their 6th and 7th man. Immediacy is not something one feels come playoff time. It is something one cultivates over the season. Consider this one harvest missed.
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Jamal
Was missed and this team needs another wing, big, and guard to be a serious contender to come out of the East. As is this team is not a contender to come out of East and unless it is Boston we see in 2nd round this team will have another quick 4 or 5 game exist in 2nd round. Jamal is only consistent player off bench and that just is not good enough. Cle, Bos, and Orlando have all had key players out for long stretches and still manage to have records just as good or better than Hawks, that’s a major sign that we are not in that class
I was excited about this game until I heard JC would be out
I knew he was valuable to our team, but I don’t think I had quite wrapped my head around just how valuable he was. I’m not saying that we would have definitely won, but I feel pretty confident that that zone defense would have been ripped to shreds. JJ gets a pass from me tonight because I can only imagine what it must feel like to run up and down the court when all you want to do is go somewhere and lie down. I hate the loss, but I under the loss. Offensively speaking, without Jamal, our bench is offensive. That’s just the long and short of it.
Yeah true but the glaring deficiency was the absence of JC
18 ppg from a bench player is hard to replace. Coincidentally that’s how many points we loss by. The Hawks were playing uninspired basketball for much of the game and they were still relatively close or ahead until Cook started feeling it. That in itself speaks volumes. The Heat aren’t that good, but we played like crap and went through our very disturbing scoring drought. The difference this time was we didn’t have Jamal to bail us out.
by dstdeelite on Feb 10, 2010 11:58 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Tonight the franchise player
needed to step up and do something extra. He didn’t. He was downright awful. Thanks for nothing.
@cocoqt81
Note: Joe is no longer our franchise player
Even if Joe and Woody think so, we all know Josh Smith is our MVP now. Smith scores 2 more points on 7 fewer shots, has more rebounds, NO FOULS, yet only gets 36 minutes when Joe Johnson gets 44.
This makes me really mad at Woodson. I think he was content to lose this one and blame in on no Jamal/Zaza.
Why did I jump on the Woody train after “eyebrow-gate” in Houston?
by coachkcastellon on Feb 11, 2010 1:34 AM EST up reply actions
Fountain of youth
For one night, the big man for Miami seemed unstoppable. This was the Jermaine O’Neal of Indiana days, a team that was a championship contender with so many great players, and a young center that could not miss. We ran into him. Hats off to him. He made tough shot after tough shot with Lion guarding him. Booing Wade is hip, wish that would not happen though. He is a great player and deserves respect, but I know the hard feelings from last year linger.
We ran into Miami with no Jamal (I was at the game and wasn’t sure where he was) and what clearly was the second sluggish game for JJ-may be flu related. Our frontline did what it could, Lion and Smoove and Marv (again) played well, our bench play was again missing. Yes Zaza not there, he may have helped. Not sure. Sure can use help on the bigs, ah well. Some in crowd were complaining about refs. I agree with HawksDawgs, that is an easy way out, refs called a ok game, it is a difficult job to be a ref, and normally calls even out, there is no conspiracy against the beloved Hawks. Yep I know this is unpopular territory, but we missed and had free throws. There is no excuse for scoring 76 points a game, but minus JJ (missing after 1st few minutes) and Jamal, this team doesn’t have big time scorers.
On a positive note, we have done well and exceeded all expectations for the team before the all star break. Lets keep our heads up, it has been a great ride so far. Need the rest, sit back and enjoy the next few days, will miss the fun. Go Hawks
Missing Jamal
Miami zoned us because we couldn’t hit an outside shot. Big time we missed Jamal. Looked like we were missing a spark all night. Its the kind of lapse you wish that this team could avoid.
by SoaringDownSouth on Feb 11, 2010 7:06 AM EST reply actions
Why does no one mention that the Hawks flop like this pretty much every time on the second of a back-to-back?
It’s obvious that they are trying to make a point to the league office: We don’t care about no stinkin’ game. We need sleep!
I say that only half-jokingly. Zaza and Jamal wouldn’t have mattered—it was mali-it-in night, just like it is every time in theses games. What is maddening is that they actually have a real shot at getting second in the East, but somehow they think they can give away games like this when others don’t.
“mali-it-in night.” Now that would have been an interesting event at Phillips. Can we get that, I mean, seriously?
well jamal was obviously missed
Along with zazas energy and toughness. JJ definently was under the weather. It was so obvious after the 1st quarter. They definently need to rest and finish the rest of the season out strong. Idk if I wanna see jj this weekend if he isn’t feeling well, get better jj!
by Hawksgirl on Feb 11, 2010 9:04 AM EST via mobile reply actions
I went to the game with a guy who watches like <1 basketball game a year
and he was making fun of Collins.
I don’t get why, when the fourth quarter rolls around, it’s time to start jacking up Tough Shots when all game long we’ve had decent spots.
Because the 4th is carte blanche for JJ.
And he never met a shot that wasn’t tough. He won’t even dunk, for pete’s sake…
No passes on this one, Woody, JJ
These comments are incredibly gracious to JJ. He was absolutely broke after the first quarter, and yet he decided to shoot us out of the game in the 4th. He ended 7-21, awful, but I’d like to see what he shot excluding first quarter. (Who here thinks they could score 16 on the Heat with 21 shots?) Having an off night happens, but that shouldn’t coincide with feeling an obligation to take all the big shots. The team is good this year because it isn’t just the JJ show anymore.
So JJ plays 44 minutes when he is apparently under the weather and is a prolific brick-chucker. His value is primarily as a shotmaker, so leaving him in the game for that long is a huge coaching error. Its hard to shoot when you have no legs under you. Woody’s lack of flexibility really hurt us here. There were enough minutes to be distributed between Evans, Teague, and the other starters to not force JJ to be on the court the entire second half. The other options are getting the ball to Smoove and Al, the more efficient scorers tonight and nearly every night, and maybe they can create opportunities to JJ when he clearly can’t create on his own. Sure, losing Jamal’s scoring really hurt, but there was no tactical adjustment. There rarely is with this coaching staff – we live or die by our designated volume scorers.
This is the sort of game I hate seeing most from the Hawks. Joe is off. Woody rides him anyway. We go down in flames. Not pretty. I agree that Joe is no longer the franchise player, but the team isn’t being run that way.
by Exiled Atlantan on Feb 11, 2010 10:03 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
it didn't feel like it in the moment because the overall energy was so slow
but that really was a Joe show.
seeing al horford’s seven shots screams it.
Another fun fact
Three of the Heat starters combined to go 5-22 and the Hawks still lost by 18.
@cocoqt81
"So JJ plays 44 minutes" --you could have stopped right there.
But no! There’s also—
—“when he is apparently under the weather”
—on the second day of a back-to-back
—travel involved the same day
and can anyone be surprised by this:
—“He ended 7-21”
But wait. That’s not even the whole of it, even yet! There’s this:
—“He decided to shoot us out of the game in the 4th”
Sad? Pathetic? Stupid? Yes.
Morris?
I was watching this on on tv and after seeing stupid fouls on the wrong player (Jason Collins) I fail to see how Randolph Morris could be worse. At least in the garbage time Morris plays in, he scores.
he could not be worse
it is against the laws of the universe to be worse than Collins was last night.
Win some, lose some.
Miami won, Hawks lost, for various reasons, mostly because the Heat got the ball in the basket more times than the Hawks. Basically in the final minutes, JO and Cook made some game winning shots, the Hawks on the other hand were missing game winning shots. Why? It boggles the mind. If the team played every team with the same type of energy, focus, etc. that they do the Boston Celtics they would probably be undefeated by now.
And another thing about last night’s game. Miami was playing defense and seem to be playing to get back up in the standings. I think they are at number eight right now. ??? Meanwhile our beloved Hawks are in the 3rd spot. If they don’t turn it all the way up, think let’s do it, and keep victory in mind, they are gonna find themselves looking up to these sub 500 teams and worse out of playoff contention period.
But one thing I must comment is that you have to give the Hawks credit. They haven’t been on any long losing streaks. Knock on wood. This is comforting. After the break you can be assured they’ll get a new winning streak started, starting with the LA Clippers.
Q&A
Where is the Q&A we are expecting Hawksdawg?
Does anyone else
have any observation besides JJ going 7-21? You know we were 71-71 in the fourth and the heat went on a 23-5 the rest of the way. Besides Jamal and Pachulia missing, we have had games like this in the fourth for whatever reason. Can anyone tell me why Josh felt more inclined to shoot more jumpers than usual? I could tell you that on most of their crucial possessions everyone was on the wings and only Al Horford was on the block. That meant if he got an off rebound on that possession it was a miracle. Josh Smith should not be on the wing as a shooter because no one respects it and it’s an insult to his game to not be closer to the basket.
But, you know….we can sort of attribute this to fatigue and just wanting to get an early all-star break head start. But we must come out next week on a mission. (To play smart basketball)
Atlanta will win a championship....someday
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