Zaza makes a very wide "V" for victory to emphasize his awesomeness.
via www1.pictures.gi.zimbio.com
Ladies and gentlemen, your November Atlanta Hawks are back. Where stingy defense and three pointers reign over a kingdom of victory.
It is a dangerous way to live, but shoot if it doesn't feel good.
And if you want to find something negative about this game (and I certainly will later in the recap), try and remember this, the Hawks handed one of the top three teams in the league a loss, and Joe, Al, and Josh only provided 23 points on 35 shots. I don't care if the Lakers missed open shots or forgot to play five guys, you take that win and feel good about that win.
On that defense or where Mike Woodson almost smiles
The Lakers shot thirty five percent. 76 points is the lowest point total for LA all season. They only had 14 assists.
Mike Woodson, so excited his defense first mentality now has a crowing game to point to for the rest of his coaching career, decided to go buck nutting in his post game.
This was probably the best defensive game we’ve played all season.
The thing is I am not sure if I can argue with the man. I can't off the top of my head at least. Of course if you watched the final five minutes of the game, you are laughing at this recap right now. You are preparing your mocking comment. You are saying anyone can win if the other team literally cannot hit a shot. And its true. The Hawks went cold minus a lucky Bibby three and a Flip jumper, but they did not get lucky. If this game happened in reverse, we would be saying how the Lakers just took their foot off the gas. We would be talking like we talked after the Boston game or the Cleveland game. The Hawks earned that cold spell. And all those Laker misses, they were jumpers. Settled for jumpers.
Zaza Pachulia
My new favorite past time is noting how easy Zaza would be to hate if he did not play for the Hawks. This single reason is enough to offer him a contract this summer. He is dirty, he celebrates too much, he sets hard screens, he pushes, he pulls, he gets offensive boards, and self padded stats, he is glorious and I want to buy his jersey.
When he plays all out, it is just bag of ugly awesomeness. The man had a double double in 22 minutes. I wish I was at a bar right now and Zaza was there because I want to buy him a beer.
Extended Victory Bullets
- Big Al is in a slump. He has roughly 7 games to fix that. Because I like him so, I hope it only takes 1.
- I was starting to want Mario West out of the game in the first half, not because he was doing a bad job, but because he was making Kobe angry.
- Josh Smith under control on the fast break is a completely different animal than what I will call "normal" Josh Smith on the break.
- Zaza should do the walk off interview always and forever.
- Al finished with four fouls. Zaza with three. That is all I want to say about that.
- Mo Evans play tonight is why the Hawks win when he starts. He did exactly zero things to hurt the team.
- Niques mantra "don't settle" for the three pointer is one I support even in games like this one when they are falling.
- At certain points Bob Rathbon seemed legitimately disgusted with how bad the Lakers were playing.
- I could watch the Joe playoff add roughly forever.
- It may be because he was not developed correctly, but the reality is that I would rather Zaza or Al foul out every game than see that man play. He is not even a space eater since he spends most of the game under the basket. What I am trying to say is that Solo would not get a free beer at the bar.
- Josh Smith blocks are just more impressive than most other people's blocks.
- The Bibby off the glass three made me scream inappropriately loud.
Game thread comment of the game from Bronn with "At the beginning of the year, if you had told me the Hawks could be beating the Lakers at halftime behind the good play of Zaza Pachulia and Flip Murray, I’d have replied "I don’t work for the CIA, so I have no idea what the counter-sign is."
Great win and go Hawks!