Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Atlanta Hawks 103 Golden State Warriors 93

Boxscore

Team
Poss Off Eff eFG% FT Rate OR% TO%
GS
96
0.969
49.4
13.2
22.7
18.8
ATL 94
1.096 55.8
8.1
23.3
13.8

In general, the game offered a restatement of themes rather than revelations.

The Hawks always looked likely to create wide open shot with sufficient regularity and, at least when Al Horford (15 rebounds, 5 offensive) and/or Zaza Pachulia (7 rebounds in 19 minutes) in the game, to grab enough rebounds for the game's outcome never to be truly in doubt despite ample evidence of Atlanta's inability to stop dribble penetration or rotate well once said dribble penetration demands the attention of help defense. Golden State committed too many turnovers and didn't knock down enough of their (mostly open) three-point attempts, while the Hawks kept them off the free throw line and rebounded well enough defensively for it to be a poor Warrior offensive night overall even with Atlanta's familiar defensive worries on display.

Offensively, the Hawks provided a reminder that, when they move the ball, move without the ball, and look to get the ball inside initially, they create extremely high quality shots. 31 assists on 44 field goals on 55.8 eFG% attest to that. Each of those numbers could have been higher had Atlanta not displayed, at times, some shockingly poor transition passing.

Larry Drew appears capable of tightening up his rotation at home against over-matched opposition. As in last Wednesday's comfortable win over the Cavaliers, the Hawks essentially played eight. Tonight, the ninth man was Jeff Teague. Facing facts, if Drew can't find minutes for Teague (coming off the latest strong performance in a fairly successful season) against the Warriors on a night Mike Bibby and Jamal Crawford combine to make one of eight first half shots, when Crawford makes just two of ten shots for the game, and even a hobbling Stephen Curry can get in the lane at will then Teague's not simply not going to receive regular minutes.

4 comments:

JDS said...

Maybe you should come up with "The Teague Treatment" where a young player for the Hawks has a good game and the following game the player gets limited or no minutes.

Bronnt said...

JDS, seems like it might need to be named "The Salim Stoudamire" treatment.

JDS said...

Bronn you are right, I forgot about Salim. I don't feel like looking it up but the game where he scored bout 30 and then nothing

Bret LaGree said...

The Teague and Stoudamire Treatments would be the inverses of each other.

The latter involves forcing a spot-up shooter to handle the ball a lot when he receives his inconsistent playing time whereas The Teague Treatment necessitates an indifferent shooter playing off the ball while Jamal Crawford dribbles.