I was afraid that the Hawks would experience a bit of a letdown following that big road win on Boston, then having to travel back home for a back-to-back with New Orleans. There were plenty of reasons to underestimate the Hornets, who were without Chris Paul (as you may have heard, Atlanta had a chance to draft that guy a few years ago) and were so bad up to this point that they got a coach fired who took two straight teams to the playoffs. Stay on your toes, Mike Woodson.
Turns out, I was worried about the wrong team.
The Boston Celtics, following the non rivalry game, stumbled on the road against Indiana. I'm taken to understand that Danny Granger went nuts, but the fall-out is, Atlanta is in first place. Someone who knows how to do some research might confirm this, but I'm going on record and saying the Hawks haven't had the best record in the conference after 10 games in over a decade. In fact, but for a last second three by that guy we love to hate, Atlanta would be the only two loss team in the East. I'm already excited about playing Miami at home on Wednesday.
This was a fun one. Hawks added another 17 offensive boards, and if they didn't kill New Orleans the way they did Boston, they still won the rebounding battle, and 17 is a lot of offensive rebounds. Also, Hubie Browns' inability to pronounce Pachulia (Pachula? Pachuler? Pachuli?) makes 'Nique sound a lot smarter.
Abbreviate Victory bullets (since I was partially watching football)
- I regret every minute I spent watching Alabama/Mississippi State. I shall be in repentance for the remainder of the weekend.
- Josh Smith wants your All-Star votes. The only problem is, if he keeps having games like this, we're going to have a lot more wins like this one, and he'll never get his minutes back up.
- 80% of the Hawks starting five looked like a well-oiled offensive machine. Marvin Williams may be the team's best man defender, but having shooting nights like this one make it hard for Woodson to keep him on the floor. He actually got demoted to the second team for garbage minutes, which isn't a good sign for him.
- Jeff Teague continues to flash some very nice raw skills-good speed, ball handling, and passing ability-but he hasn't put together a good game since he embarrassed the Lakers' reserves in an out-of-hand game
- Randolph Morris played 4 minutes and, if he was happy about it, I couldn't tell one way or another..