just “ouch!”, Nothing else to say.

Glad Joe got the rest. Easily could have won by ten, but you know…some people still want to chop wood with a butter knife when they have chain saw right next to them. I don’t know what Josh’s beef is, but he better grill it up and eat it so his attitude won’t spread to the other teammates. I still want to know who is the real player leader in the locker room. Or who can be?

all he had to do was hold onto the rebound

Unbelievable. Moving on….Charlotte is next. I hate playing them about as much as Orlando. Go Hawks!!

Way to go Black Kojak.

You coulda started Teague, or even played him double-digit minutes, to show that you still trust him and plan to develop the guy.

Instead you give the rook just 8 minutes.

And the only bench player not named Jamal to gets double-digit minutes is Zaza, with 11.

Way to use your bench, Babe!

12 of them came via 2 front court players. For one, 22 assists on 41 made baskets isn’t a great ratio-it’s fairly average. But generally, guards are supposed to be distributors, not the bigs, but we had such an easy time getting bigs into a position detrimental to the defense that they were able to dominate will ball movement. They had it so easy that no one else tried very hard to get a quality shot.

This makes the last five minutes completely bewildering. Here’s what happened (this is obviously long).

At 5:00, Hawks lead 99-90, following a Horford made basket.

At 4:42 Bargnani gets fouled and makes 1 Free throw. 99-91.

On the next possession, great ball movement is ruined by crappy spacing (one might call it Iso spacing). Crawford and Horford set a pick and roll, but there’s no one near the basket. Horford catches in a great position, but the defense collapses in on him. He passes cross-court to Marvin who flips it to Josh Smith, who stood at the three point line the entire possession and naturally took the open 21 footer. Miss. Two Raptors block out Horford while a third secures the rebound-no one else was close.

Next possession, at 4:13, DeRozan is fouled on a drive by Marvin. Again, only one made FT and it’s 99-92.

The next possession doesn’t do anything until Jamal gets the ball isolated at the top of the key with 10 seconds left on the shotclock. Again, crappy spacing, with no one in a position to rebound, but it doesn’t matter as Crawford hits a 22 footer. 101-92

The next possession is entirely on Josh. He’s standing around watching, so his man-Bargnani-just slips from the 3 point line past where Josh is stationed at the free throw line to catch an open lay-up at the basket. Josh effectively guarded no one on that possession, and didn’t even hustle to attempt to make it up once he realized his error. 101-94.

Keep in mind, now, it’s a 3 possession game with 3:30 left at this point.

Bibby dribbles it slowly up the court, passes to Crawford with 14 on the shot clock. Crawford puts on a dribbling display, doesn’t look for any better shot, and heaves a three up with no one in a position to block out with 4 left on the shot clock. No attempt to find a big.

Toronto gets a phantom transition 3. Once again, no one deigns to guard Bargnani, a good shooter, at the 3 point line. Part of this is because the Hawks didn’t have a chance to set the defense, and Bibby was on Bosh while Horford was on Derozan as the ball was pushed up the court, so Josh cheats toward Bargnani who is left totally open. 101-97 with 2:50 left.

This time the Hawks clearly had a plan. Gave it Horford posting up Bargnani from about 18 feet, and he turns and drives straight in for 2. Good shot. 103-97. And Horf nearly steals the inbound pass too as it’s lazily delivered.

Next possession is a bad switch. Marvin switches onto Bosh who gets into a good position and is fouled before he can ever even catch the pass, while Horf is out on Turkoglu. Bosh makes both, and then it’s 103-99 with 2:20 remaining.

At this point, we’re clearly force feeding Horf. First he’s handed the ball off outside the perimeter, which clearly isn’t a good position, so there’s a quick reset to post him up from about 18 feet, and Bosh fouls him. On the out of bounds, Horf is clearly establishing post position against Bosh again, but for some reason, the ball goes in to Crawford instead, who gives to Josh in the high post. Josh tries to drive through a double team (doesn’t dish out to a wide open Marvin in the corner) and loses the ball.

On the transition, Jamal does a great job of picking up Weems, then comes out to cover Turkoglu when he passes out. But Weems gets the ball back wide open as Bibby fails to pick up anyone at any point, so Weems sinks the deuce, 103-101.

(At this point, you’ll notice that bad offense seems to be leading to transition baskets).

Okay, clearly the problem with the previous play was the failure to get Horford the ball when he finds a good post position. So Horford establishes himself once again, and spins off to sink a nifty hook shot. 105-101, 1:37 left.

Coming back, Toronto wants to isolate Bosh on Horford for some reason. The Hawks comply, and Horford swats the shot and gets the rebound with 1:22 left.

Afterward, the Hawks clearly want to run some clock, so Jamal stands out at halfcourt dribbling until the shotclock gets to about 10 without making a serious move. Horford once against attempts to establish a good post position, but he’s forced out way too high given the amount of time. No one else is inside the 3 point stripe anywhere. Horf hands the ball back out to Jamal for an open three. It’s rush, but a decent look. What makes THIS possession bad is Jamal gets his shot up, and there’s 4 green jerseys closer to the basket than any single white jersey. Turkoglu, Bargnani, and Calderon-not one of those guys was forced to actually guard someone on this possession. WAY too much standing around. Calderon gets the rebound with 58 seconds left, timeout.

Toronto then runs another Bosh iso. Josh Smith gets switched onto him and, well…he let him face-up, which was the problem. Josh actually plays him well, but he’s not great at cutting off guys with lateral quickness, which gives Bosh the separation he needs to get up his shot. 105-103, 45 seconds left.

Keep in mind-Horford has scored 6 out of the last eight points. One the 3 other possessions where he’s touched the ball, he 1) broke down the defense resulting in Josh Smith catching the ball wide open from 23 feet, 2) drew a Chris Bosh foul, and 3) created a good open look for Jamal. What do the Hawks do here?

Apparently, the plan was for Jamal to drive into a bad baseline angle. He does a nifty job of finding Bibby open, but the pass isn’t crisp enough for Bibby to get a shot up. Horford asks for the ball. It goes to Marvin. Horford asks for the ball. It goes to Josh, who immediately drives and then complains about no foul being called. 1) This is the second bad drive by Josh inside the 5 minute mark, and it also marks 3 ill-advised shots in which the best move was clearly to pass it. Horford, the man who’s created all your offense over the past 5 minutes, does not touch the ball.

We know what happened from there. Bosh iso, fade-away, and then a Jamal heave.