Positives
- Randolph Morris appears (17 minutes, 8 points, 3 rebounds, 5 fouls).
- Al Horford's double-double.
Negatives
- Flip Murray (career 27.9% shooter) attempted more three-pointers than Al Horford did field goals.
- 59% of the Hawks' field goal attempts came from Murray, Joe Johnson, and Mike Bibby while Horford and Josh Smith took just 15 shots, making 10.
- 5 offensive rebounds?
- In eight days the Hawks will play the Magic, the game will count, and the Hawks still won't have anyone who can guard Dwight Howard.
"We don’t have the luxury of sitting key guys and all that, we’re still trying to get our rotations down and get our chemistry right. We don’t have but one game left before the regular season starts, so we have to buckle down. This is the team we play first. And I definitely thought it was as a good test for us. And a good indicator of what’s to come the rest of the way.
Our defense stunk tonight, especially us guards. We put ourselves in a tough situation by not being able to keep anybody in front of us. And we put our bigs in tough spots because they didn’t want to leave Dwight.”
Mike Bibby:
"We’re playing pretty good overall but we still have lapses here and there. It starts with me; I need to put more pressure on the ball and make things a little tougher on [their] point guard."
Mike Woodson:
"We’re not playing at the level that we finished against the Celtics in the playoffs. Guys that have gone through camp to this point know the intensity that we want to play with and I’m not getting that right now. So we’ve got some work to do before we head back to Orlando for our opening game.”
The Hawks finished the playoffs against the Celtics down 34 points for Game 7 and down 84 points for the series. Keep reaching for the stars, coach.