Hawks vs. Raptors Final Score: Atlanta Hawks 100, Toronto Raptors 77

A bit too harsh?

But it’s funny for truth. Chipper is the ageless wonder.

but in this instance they aren’t allowing him to do his job which is my complaint.

we’ll just disagree on a few things like – I’ve discussed ad nauseum of the difference that Teague makes for this team and I have discussed lots of what we are doing well this year, but they also are things that we haven’t done for any sustained amount of time (20 games isn’t a sustained amount of time to me). The bad things we’ve done – we’ve done for YEARS, so I need to see it for a longer amount of time to give full credit. Now, to be clear, I don’t magnify anything. I tell it like it is. So, yes – it’s worse to lose a game you DOMINATE by 2 pts than it is to win a game that that same team gives up on you beat them so bad. Same thing for the Heat – yes, it’s much more of a psychological issue to me to lose a game because you lose focus when people aren’t even playing.

Doesn’t nullify anything – it does mean that that’s something that might be a problem come the playoffs. LeBron is the greatest player in the game and guess what – those last 5 minutes are a problem for him right now. Doesn’t make him less great, but it does mean that it can’t be overlooked. I don’t overlook the problems we’ll see in May because we’re 16-6. I’m thrilled we are 16-6, but I’m not gonna sit here and act like Larry Drew is a good coach. I have watched too much evidence that says Larry Drew is terrible. The only thing I’m giving him credit for is – eliminating the switching defense. that’s it, but he’s still doing the same dumb things that Woody did. He’s got to win a 2nd round series to make me forget that he watched Bibby and Teague and decided – hmmm, let’s go with Bibby. That he watched Zaza and said – hmmm, let’s play Jason Collins. Sorry, not buying the Drew makes me feel better about not having Woody…they both are bad..

just sayin

I thought youd’ never ask. I’ll provide coaches and I’ll provide my point more succinctly

Coaches – Pop, Collins, Rivers, Thibs, Adelman, Carlisle, Karl and in a second tier – Brooks, Vogel,Hollins, and Spolestra (need to see more in the postseason to truly elevate them. That’s 11 coaches in a league where I only think there are about 12-14 above average teams in the league. So, here’s the point – Pop’s team was 12-9 before their recent 3 game win streak. So, at the 21 game point – the Hawks are 15-6. Are the Hawks better than the Spurs? From a personnel perspective I would say yes…but in a 7 game series who am I more concerned about…the Hawks and much of that has to do with the fact that in addition to the things the coach can’t help on the playing side such as playoff experience and execution – I do believe that about 15% of the games the coach’s decisions matter.

So, I’ve already had the debate with you about the 2 games we lost I absolutely thought Drew could have affected positively (the Bulls mostly, but the Heat game too). There were 5 other games we just weren’t going to win – team didn’t play bad, nothing Drew could have done. So, when I look at our 7 losses, in 2 of them – the coach made decisions to win the game…Thibs decided to keep his Deng and Rose in the entire 2nd half because he realized the bench didn’t have it. And he won the game due to that decision. If he sits Rose and Deng for even 2-3 minutes, they lose that game. Same for the Spurs – 2 minutes into the 2nd half – Pop BENCHES the entire starting 5 except Duncan and pretty much rides them to victory. It’s arguable whether they win or not, but the point was pretty clear – hey, starting 5 you didn’t come to play out of the locker room and since you don’t want to play – I got some guys over here who do..so 1) I don’t play not coming to play and 2) we can win without you. How refreshing a coaching decision. What team could use a kick in the a$$ like that when it comes to coming out in the 2nd half flat? It’s one thing to talk about it to the AJC – it’s another to see something and do osomething about it. Too often Drew is not doing anything about it.

So, go ahead and pick apart the coaches that I think are good and while I’m sure you will find some flaws – I just hope we’re not doing one of those things where we try to say oh, you think LeBron is good, but he can’t hit free throws in the clutch. B/c I’ll concede flaws while saying but he’s still the best player in the NBA. Flaws don’t equate to bad. My reasoning for believing Drew is just bad to mediocre run deep and it’s going to take more than us beating bad to mediocre teams for the first part of this season to overcome that. I mean we are talking about the guy who starts Collins and let Teague sit on the bench for an entire season. If that’s the behind the scenes that you think we need to just give the benefit of the doubt, I’m just going to have to disagree. So, to sum up, my stance is always – owner, mgmt, coach, then players. That’s how I assess blame and right now…Sund and Drew are still on the clock…