First and foremost, if you have not seen this game yet, go fill a bath tub with water and ice. Wait. Dip head....and now we are all on the same page.
Sweet mother mercy. My wife just woke up to me pantomiming psychotic celebration in front the television because the Philips crowd was so loud.
Enough craziness...ok not enough. That was incredible, beyond incredible, but if we can pretend it was enough, we can all say "thank you." And of course that is directed to the front court duo of Al Horford and Josh Smith. It was not their fault they put in 44 points and guarded Steve Nash and still had a great chance to lose. They kept pushing, kept rebounding, and maybe most importantly kept hitting free throws, even as the crowd left the arena sure they had seen Atlanta's last.
We talk a lot about not giving up after that early fourth quarter runs. We hate on how players who stop trying after a certain seemingly easy bit of pressure. Well, I gave up. And the Jamal Crawford and crew didn't. My hat is off to the team. You were the best Hawk fans of the night.
But lets not be too serious. The Hawks should have taken this game running away. Joe Johnson took some horrible fourth quarter shots. Woodson switched on Horford on to Nash about 90% of the time. They might as well have started the defense that way.
By the end of the game, the Hawks insanely made sense defensively. They made no sense yet made sense. Steve Nash one on one against Horford is better than Horford reaching to keep someone from a layup. Woody's defense makes no sense until you realize no defense makes much sense when the Hawks play good offense.
Woody and Joe (and they are a combo deal in the fourth) didn't run good O, but dang did Jamal Crawford not care. The man just took the national telecast and lit it on fire and then four minutes later came back with gas and poured it on
Where was Teague?
Go Hawks!