Thursday, February 12, 2009

Hawks 99 Pistons 95

Boxscore

Gameflow

Team Poss Off Eff eFG% FT Rate OR% TO%
ATL 84.3 1.17 54 25.7 17.1 8.3
DET 84.3 1.13 52.5 15.2 27.5 11.9

I think it's nice* to end the first half of the season with a rather typical 2008-09 Hawks performance.

*That's just me practicing for my return to the Midwest this weekend.

With the exception of Mike Bibby's quiet night, most everything went according to plan.
  • Joe Johnson converted his shot opportunities both easy and difficult.
  • Josh Smith took some terrible shots but did enough else (7 assists, 7 rebounds, 4 steals) to negate his attempt at self-negation.
  • Marvin Williams and Al Horford got fewer chances than their offensive talent deserves but were efficient when given the chance.
  • Flip Murray took over the game for both good (the third quarter) and ill (his last three shot attempts) but mostly for good.
And thus the Hawks enter the All-Star break with 31 wins and a three-and-a-half game lead for the fourth seed in the East (plus the tiebreaker over the Pistons should it come to that).

Mike Woodson:
"That shows that we've got a lot of guys that are hungry last year after getting a taste of success in the first round against the world champs."
Joe Johnson:
"We just came out with a lot of intensity, and we tried to sustain it and give ourselves a chance down the stretch. This is a statement, but we still have a long way to go. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We want to stay humble, keep working hard and try to have a great second half."
Al Horford:
"This was just a huge game for us, and I think we all understood the importance of this game and finishing strong going into the All-Star break. For me, each game I feel better. Tonight I finally felt like I was back to myself, and now hopefully we can get a little momentum going into the break and beyond."
Links...

Peachtree Hoops
Hawks Str8talk
Piston Powered

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree with your breakdown for the most part, but don't really agree with the part where you say that Williams and Horford got fewer chances than their talent deserves. Horford didn't get "it" back until the last four minutes of the second quarter. Until then, he was 0-4 with 2 points. If he had been on the whole game, I believe he would have broken 25 or 30 points, because it was pretty obvious that they didn't have anyone who could really guard him when he was hot.

As far as Williams goes, I'm still not sure what's going on with him. He seemed to thrive being the go-to attack the basket man while Joe was out, getting to the line and making his share of great plays around the rim. Since Joe has come back, he seems to be far less effective on offense in his role as basically garbage man and mid/long range shooter. I would love to see Woodson run more plays that let Williams attack the rim and exploit the fact that he's apparently unguardable by opposing 3's in the triple threat position, but who knows if that will ever happen...

Jason Walker said...

Mike Woodson:
"That shows that we've got a lot of guys that are hungry last year after getting a taste of success in the first round against the world champs."


From the Mike Woodson Generic Quote Machine!

I guess they were full or weren't as hungry in games like the ones against the Clippers, Bucks, etc.? Or maybe they didn't like the taste of success?

That Mike Woodson---provocative!