Initial Feedback: Who Cares About Winning?

Initial feedback: A completely subjective and immediate response to the events of tonight's game, featuring a comment and rating, the latter on a scale of 1 to 10, on every player who saw the floor and the head coach, along with ephemera and miscellany as the author deems necessary.

Your ratings and commentary, dear reader, are welcomed in the comments to this post.

Boxscore

Players

Jeff Teague: On a night when Jannero Pargo made his first 5 3-pointers to blow the game open, Teague's 3 points and 3 assists in 14 minutes were window dressing. 3/10

Joe Johnson: Larry Drew's defensive schemes against Orlando in last year's playoffs are generally cited as the difference in the Hawks' series victory. Orlando's lack of sufficient defensive talent on the perimeter to guard shot creators Joe Johnson and Jamal Crawford probably factored equally. This deficiency was on display again tonight. 6/10

Josh Smith: Pargo's outside shot was falling, Marvin's shot was falling, Smoove's shot was falling... Orlando's playoff seed is falling. Everything was falling.7/10

Zaza Pachulia: Speaking of falling, even as the Hawks win they manage to shoot themselves in the foot as Marvin rolled over Zaza's ankle, limiting him to 8 points and 4 rebounds in 16 minutes. Fortunately X-rays at halftime were negative and it is only a sprain. 6/10

Kirk Hinrich: Started and helped anchor the second unit that took care of business. Scored 8 with 5 assists but led the team with 3 turnovers. 4/10

Marvin Williams: You know you're missing something from your interior defense when Marvin Williams is free to drive and dunk. His form on his jump shot looked better than normal with no unnecessary horizontal movement or leg kick. 6/10

Tracy McGrady: As I read Atlanta Journal-Constitution Hawks beat writer Chris Vivlamore's report earlier today about the Hawks suspending Ivan Johnson for one game for an incident on the bench in Boston, I found one thing encouraging. Larry Drew told C-Viv that he had a good conversation with Ivan before he boarded a plane back to Atlanta and that the punishment was no different than he would have given to any other player.

I've been concerned that Drew might be the type to hold a grudge. For example, consider T-Mac's time in the dog house this year after he complained to the media about playing time. A game like this shows that Drew will still utilize a player he's had past difficulties with. It also shows that T-Mac can still help the Hawks in the playoffs, especially if Orlando is the first-round draw. 5/10

Vladimir Radmanovic: Probably wouldn't have played if Ivan was available, and you can't expect much after all the time he's missed. 2/10

Jannero Pargo: The President of the Atlanta Hawks Streak Shooter Committee, Pargo is not a shot creator like Jamal Crawford. His struggles handling the ball have been well-chronicled on these pages. One thing he is, however, is a shot maker. 8/10

Jerry Stackhouse: Scored 11 points in 13 minutes as he toyed with Orlando's bench in garbage time. 6/10

Jason Collins: Marked present. Incomplete

Erick Dampier: Marked present. Incomplete

The head coach

Drew was thoroughly out-coached in Wednesday’s loss in Boston, but I still feel like the team is coming together. Doug Collins and Stan Van Gundy could both learn a few things from Drew about personality management. Not much coaching was required in this one.

5/10

A thought regarding the opposition

In the immediate aftermath of Van Gundy revealing that Howard asked for his removal as head coach, Miami Herald columnist Israel Gutierrez appeared on an ESPN First Take segment titled “Whose Side Are You On?” Gutierrez opened his remarks by saying, “I don’t see how anyone could NOT be on Stan Van Gundy’s side.” He went on to elaborate that Van Gundy was under no obligation to protect Dwight Howard’s reputation.

I can understand why you would be more concerned with shaping people’s perceptions of players if you are a newspaper columnist, but if you are an NBA head coach, shouldn’t you be more concerned about wins and losses? In what way does Van Gundy improve the prospects of the Orlando Magic by revealing Howard as a coach killer and sending his reputation just South of LeBron James? As mentioned previously, Van Gundy had the opportunity to coach the best center of a generation in two consecutive generations and failed to win a championship with either one. He’ll make a great commentator though.

Drexler: Pick-and-Roll Defense a Hawks Weakness

Nate Drexler at TrueHoop Network's Magic Basketball breaks down the disparity in pick and roll defense between the Celtics and Hawks in this excellent analysis.

Obviously, every team in the Eastern Conference playoff race would like to avoid the Celtics, the way they are playing. Drexler points out that Boston hurts a key component of Orlando's offense by leading the league in defending the pick-and-roll, allowing only 0.81 points per possession. The Hawks? Not quite as scary:

They hold opponents to 0.85 points per possession in pick-and-roll sets — eighth-best in the league. But the key difference? They allow ball-handlers to shoot 40 percent from deep in pick-and-rolls. That’s a stark difference from the lock-down approach that Boston takes.

Should the Hawks face the Magic again in the postseason, the strategy of single-covering Dwight and staying home on shooters will doubtless be revisited. But the inability to fight over screens to get to shooters may prove to be a weakness the Magic can exploit.

Celtics Provide Heat Check For Hawks Tonight

It's been 23 days since the Hawks faced the Celtics and I noted the tough road ahead for Boston, at the time the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference playoff picture. Since then, the teams in the middle of the Eastern playoff pack have headed in sometimes unexpected directions. Orlando is 5-7 since March 19th and has fallen from 3rd in the East to 6th, thanks in no small part to issues between Dwight Howard and coach Stan Van Gundy.

Meanwhile the 76ers, once clearly the third-best team in the East, have been overtaken for the Atlantic Division lead by the Celtics and dropped to 7th. This is thanks in no small part to the team apparently tuning out Doug Collins while simultaneously turning on each other. In the former link, former 76ers beat writer Kate Fagan describes the culture clash between the 76ers old guard and younger players since the team changed ownership. In the latter, Andre Iguodala is quoted by Sports Illustrated saying that teammate Lou Williams "can't guard anybody." Not the sort of team-building togetherness you want right before the playoffs.

By contrast, and despite a schedule heavy on road games and teams in playoff position, the Boston Celtics are on fire. The best explanation I've read of the Celtics' late surge is this piece by ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz:

[Brandon] Bass didn't arrive in Boston with the reputation as the league's most linear thinker on defense, but in the confines of the Celtics' system, he is doing fine. That's the thing about systems, Boston's in particular. [Ray] Allen was regarded as a sieve when he came over from Seattle in 2007, but immediately adopted the principles that governed the Celtics' D.

Arnovitz notes Doc Rivers' decision to move defensive ace Avery Bradley into the starting lineup and bring Allen's offense off the bench. The results are hard to argue with as the C's have gone 10-3 since March 19th, including impressive home-and-away wins over Miami. The team's only losses in that stretch were to West-leading San Antonio, East-leading Chicago and the formerly-impressive 76ers.

This leads me to conclude that it is very much in the Hawks' interest to overtake Indiana for the 3rd seed in the East. Assuming the current leaders win their divisions, the Hawks may need to achieve the 3rd seed to avoid facing Boston, Chicago or Miami in the first round. A first-round matchup with Orlando or Philadelphia, two teams in disarray, or Indiana, featuring the player (Roy Hibbert) who took Josh Smith's spot on the All-Star team, sounds a bit more appealing.

The Hawks must also win in Boston tonight to avoid losing the season series to the Celtics and thus a tie-break advantage in the event the teams finish with identical records. Since losing the first game of the season series to Boston March 19th, the Hawks have gone 8-3. However, only one of those wins came against a team currently in playoff position (March 30th over the Knicks).

The Celtics play the second night of a back-to-back after flying home from Miami, while the Hawks play after three days off. If the Hawks want to win the battle for perception and prove that they are better than they are given credit for, tonight's game will be a good place to start. I may end up eating my words from early in the season when I referred to Collins as a "successful" coach. It appears Larry Drew may be succeeding where Collins is failing.

Initial Feedback: Oh, Orlando, Always There When You're Needed

By Mark Phelps

Initial feedback: A completely subjective and immediate response to the events of tonight's game, featuring a comment and rating, the latter on a scale of 1 to 10, on every player who saw the floor and the head coach, along with ephemera and miscellany as the author deems necessary.

Your ratings and commentary, dear reader, are welcomed in the comments to this post.

Boxscore

Players
Jeff Teague: Jeff picked up limited minutes while Pargo was lighting it up from three in the first half, but solid ball handling helped disrupt the Magic defense as he picked up big minutes down the stretch. 5/10

Kirk Hinrich: Hinrich was definitely undersized for this job, but came out with aggression and made good passes to help push Atlanta offensively. 4/10

Marvin Williams: Once again, Marvin looked lost on offense and hesitated even when he shot in extremely limited minutes (especially considering the extent of injuries on the team). Still picked up six boards to contribute, but he'll need to find his shot again if the Hawks are to make a solid second half run. 2/10

Josh Smith: Despite not even shooting 50% on 22 shots, Josh came out with such energy that it motivated the rest of the team in the first half while building a big lead that would prove to be necessary. In addition to carrying the early scoring load, his 12 boards helped the Hawks outrebound the Magic 47-40. 8/10

Zaza Pachulia: How does a guy shooting 1-6 pick up 40 minutes in a close game? Shut down your man. Sure, Howard was 5-7 from the field, but Zaza's pesky defense kept the ball out of Howard's hands for most of the night. And that's how you beat the Magic -- deny the inside-out game. Throw in 13 rebounds, six of those offensive, and
you have the best worst-shooting-night around. 6/10

Jannero Pargo: Pargo ate his Wheaties today. 3-4 from the arc and would have had a better percentage overall if not for a few heat-check shots. Surprisingly rode the pine in most of the second half. 7/10

Willie Green: Willie came up big in the second half, especially in a stretch run where he scored back-to-back buckets. Didn't rack up points like last game, but calculated shots over volume shooting = things looking up for Green. 7/10

Vladimir Radmanovic: Much like Marvin, VladRad needs to find his shot again. Reasonable defense, which is better than I normally say for Radmanovic. 3/10

Tracy McGrady: Was Tracy on the floor? Oh yeah, and he did pick up a few assists while out there, but if he's upset about playing time, this game didn't help. 2/10

Ivan Johnson: Five minutes, one effective roll to the basket. Noteworthy, good or bad? Nope. 2/10

The head coach
Anytime I see a 17 point lead evaporate over a quarter, I feel the coach is doing something wrong. Drew's actions are downright inexplicable. The Hawks came through with a fortunate win over an obviously reeling Magic team simply by talent alone. Don't tell me he drew up that Kobe-style turnaround for Pargo.

A thought regarding the opposition
For a team as large as the Magic are, they don't use their size in a bullying way. They only coaxed the Hawks into 12 fouls tonight, and couldn't even use their edge to get Zaza fouled out of the game. Consistent emphasis on forcing fouls early in the game could really make the Magic a much tougher team on any given night.

Initial Feedback: Atlanta at Orlando, February 10

By Buddy Grizzard

[Apologies for the delay. I created technical issues that prevented Buddy from being able to post this following the game last night. -- Bret LaGree]

Boxscore

Players
Josh Smith: If Josh went into this game hoping to show Eastern Conference coaches the error of their ways, his 1-for-7 shooting from 16-26 feet in the first half certainly made a statement. In the second half Drew repeatedly called plays with Smith posted up on the right block. With the Hawks leading only 73-70 with 4:31 to play in the fourth quarter, Smith posted up Ryan Anderson, split a Dwight Howard double team and scored a layup, then followed with a dunk off another post up to stretch the Hawks lead to 77-70 with 3:43 to play. On a 23 point, 19 rebound, 5 assist and 3 block night, we nevertheless deduct a point for the first-half chucking. 9/10

Jeff Teague: Teague repeatedly bailed out the Hawks on busted plays by attacking the basket in the third quarter. He would find less success with this strategy with 3 minutes to play as misses on forced shots turned into a layup drill at the other end. Why do the Hawks have so many busted plays throughout the course of a game? 5/10

Joe Johnson: Was quiet throughout regulation but had another of his patented tear-drop layups over Howard as the Hawks built a 4-point lead in overtime. Was surprisingly bothered by Jason Richardson's defense on a 14-point, 5 assist night in which he did not collect a rebound. 5/10

Zaza Pachulia: Started strong at both ends and did well to avoid fouls and the Al Horford Treatment. Drew a pair of offensive fouls on Howard in the third quarter and repeatedly beat Dwight down the court for layups. Was a point shy of a double-double but had his third credible performance against an All-Star center this month. 7/10

Marvin Williams: His half court shot to close the half and 3-for-6 shooting overall from three-point range were indispensable in securing a Hawks victory. 6/10

Tracy McGrady: The only positive contributor among the bench unit with 9 points in 16 minutes. 5/10

Kirk Hinrich: Made Jameer Nelson look young again. 2/10

Jannero Pargo: Made Jameer Nelson look like Derrick Rose. 1/10

Vladimir Radmanovic: Made Ryan Anderson look like Dwight Howard. 1/10

Erick Dampier: Two rebounds in two minutes... looked good out there! 4/10

Ivan Johnson: Wasn't given much of a chance to make an impact, scoring a basket and collecting two rebounds in 6 minutes. 4/10

Willie Green: A basket and two rebounds in 12 minutes as he padded the stat he leads the Hawks in: Green has the worst aggregate +/- for the team for the season. 1/10

The head coach
Drew put the Hawks in position to win, pounding the ball inside to Smith repeatedly as the team built a 78-70 lead with 2:26 to play in regulation. Where has this play calling been all season? I guess All-Star snubs need to happen more frequently to convince Drew to get Smith the ball in optimal scoring position. From that point, the Hawks game plan disintegrated. Blown Teague layups on busted plays opened the door for three consecutive Orlando layups as the Magic closed regulation on an 8-0 run to send it into overtime. Drew should feel fortunate that the Hawks gutted it out in the extra session. A loss here would have dropped the Hawks to third in the Southeast Division and focused a lot of attention on Drew's struggles managing late-game situations. 3/10

A thought regarding the opposition
Howard had only three points through the first 20 minutes of the game. Pachulia's ability to stay on the court for 43 minutes kept this game close despite Howard's 18 point, 18 rebound night.

ESPN.com: Stein: What will Magic want for Dwight?

Marc Stein reports on trade discussions between the Hawks and Magic regarding Dwight Howard, Joe Johnson, and Josh Smith:

Sources told ESPN.com that the aforementioned Hawks, meanwhile, engaged Orlando in trade talks for Howard earlier this month with an offer believed to be headlined by $124 million guard Joe Johnson and swingman Josh Smith. You have to figure that the Magic, though, would insist on Al Horford if such discussions ever got serious.

The Hawks are not on Howard's short list of preferred trade destinations alongside the Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks, even though Atlanta is his hometown. That's presumably because Howard wants no part of Atlanta's perpetually unsettled ownership situation. The Hawks nonetheless took the risk of pursuing Howard anyway and, according to sources, felt like they were making some semblance of progress before the Magic shut down talks.

Otis Smith just traded Brandon Bass for Glen Davis so I'm not quite willing to figure that he would insist on Al Horford. Especially considering this paragraph from Stein's report:

Sources familiar with Orlando's thinking say that a picture of what the Magic will ultimately expect in return for their anchor has indeed begun to emerge, telling ESPN.com this week that Orlando would not hold out for youth and draft picks as the league-owned New Orleans Hornets were ordered to do in the Chris Paul sweepstakes. The Magic, sources say, would instead prefer to bring back multiple established veterans who can keep the team competitive.

This may be an instance where losing a franchise player in free agency and getting nothing in return benefits a franchise in the long term.

Atlanta Hawks 84 Orlando Magic 81

Boxscore

Team	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%		TO%
ORL	84	0.964	47	26.9	22.6		16.7
ATL	84	1.000	44.3	17.7	36.8		19

The Atlanta Hawks took control of this game in the first quarter on the strength of the defense played by Jason Collins and Kirk Hinrich. Without the play of those two without the ball in their hands, Jamal Crawford and Marvin Williams don't get a chance to make the jump shots that clinched the game for the Hawks (to the extent that Orlando missing open jump shots didn't clinch the game for the Hawks). Hinrich didn't just stifle Jameer Nelson when given the chance to play. He, in the first quarter, dug down very effectively on Howard (as Collins used his bulk to hold him up) and salvaged points from more than one sluggard and potentially empty Atlanta possession.

Of course, both Hinrich and Collins picked up a second personal foul in the first half, and thus sat for 9:14 and 9:45 of the second quarter, respectively. Collins played just 5:32 of the second half. Hinrich, before leaving the game due to injury, played just 10:14 of the second half. You can see how important it was neither picked up a third foul in the first half.

Hinrich left the game, following a bucket he made to give him 11 points on just 7 shots (plus 3 steals), with just 2:56 left in the fourth quarter. By my count, Orlando scored just 34 or their 84 points in the 20:58 Hinrich played and just 28 of their 84 points in the 16:41 Collins played.

The Hawks never trailed in the game. They were tied twice: 2-2 and 12-12. And still Larry Drew resisted the opportunity to put the players most likely to keep Orlando from scoring in the game. He got away with it, not because the alternatives played such good offense--Marvin Williams scored 10 points on 6 shots, Jamal Crawford scored 19 on 16 shots and 4 free throw attempts, Joe Johnson scored 23 points on 25 shots, and Josh Smith scored 8 points on 14 shots--but because the Magic, Dwight Howard once again excepted, could not quite score efficiently enough when Hinrich and Collins were off the court to take advantage of their absence.

Dwight Howard scored 25 points on 14 field goal and 12 free throw attempts. He committed six turnovers. Half of those before Larry Drew removed Collins and Hinrich from the game at the three minute mark of the first quarter. The rest of the Magic scored 56 points on 53 field goal and 10 free throw attempts while committing 8 turnovers. Orlando had open shots. On the perimeter when guarded by Crawford or Johnson or Josh Smith. Coming off curls to shoot or going to the basket when guarded by Crawford or Johnson. They didn't make many of them.

To Larry Drew's credit, he came up with an effective game plan to defend the Magic over 10 matchups this season. That's a huge step forward from the 2010 playoffs even if he didn't always stick with said plan. It turns out that a fixation on Dwight Howard had real, tangible value for the 2010-11 Atlanta Hawks.

With a willingness to be wrong twice in quick succession, I don't see how that fixation aids the Hawks against the Chicago Bulls, especially if Kirk Hinrich's knee injury is nearly as bad as it looked. There is no bullish Bull for Jason Collins to defend and there is no Atlanta guard* who can reasonably be expected to stay in front of Derrick Rose.

*Hinrich mostly stayed in front of Rose in the blowout loss in Atlanta on March 22nd but did so by giving Rose open jumpers which Rose knocked down at an unsustainably high rate. Even Hinrich would be looking to slow, rather than stop, Rose.

Plus, the Hawks scored 98.8, 89.4, and 94.2 points per 100 possessions in three meetings against the league's finest defensive team. Without a specialist to drag Chicago's (admittedly average offense) down to their level, with Chicago's best player positioned to exploit Atlanta's greatest defensive weakness, and Al Horford having suffered an additional injury since he led the Hawks to their lone victory on the strength of their two lone competitive quarters against the Bulls it's difficult to envision Atlanta competing in their next playoff series.

Winning a game against the Bulls would be some sort of mark of progress. But a mark of progress for a team that has lost 15 straight second round playoff games, was outscored during the regular season, and was outscored during their first-round series victory.

Is There a Silver Lining to the Game 5 Loss?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: almost entirely not.

There was one positive thing on display last night, and one needn't even look selectively or qualify it:

• Al Horford and Josh Smith combined for 25 rebounds in less than 70 minutes of combined playing time.

It's difficult to imagine a circumstance wherein that achievement would necessitate a caveat. However, everything else the boxscore describes is either an accurate description of ineptitude or fool's gold.

Al Horford earned an assist on 6 of the 16 field goals his teammates made while he was on the court. Of those six assists, one resulted in a Zaza Pachulia layup to pull the Hawks within 20 points with 1:47 left in the first half. One resulted in a long two-pointer from Kirk Hinrich. One resulted in a Jamal Crawford three-pointer. The other three resulted in two long Josh Smith two-point jumpers and a Josh Smith three-pointer. Al's a good passer but iso-Al, at best, created slightly better than average jump shot opportunities for his teammates. Which brings us to the other two misleading items from the boxscore: Josh Smith's 22 points and Atlanta's 32 free throw attempts.

Josh Smith played 9:24 in the first quarter. He scored five points on six field goal and six free throw attempts. After taking (and missing) a 22-footer late in the shot clock on Atlanta's first offensive possession of the game, Smith took his next five shots inside of ten feet. He made one of those shots. A couple were good attempts that missed. A couple were taken right handed, and in desperation, after he failed to get to the basket going left. When Smith returned in the second quarter, the Hawks were down 19. Over the second and third quarters, Smith scored 17 points on 12 field goal and six more free throw attempts. His first two shots upon re-entering the game and 7 of those 12 field goal attempts would be taken at least 18 feet from the basket. Smith scored his points in a manner perfectly acceptable to the opposition, a manner that in no way could change the course of the game.

Similarly, the Hawks attempted an uncharacteristically large number of free throws but not so many of them before the game was decided. In the second quarter, the Atlanta Hawks attempted 19 field goals and not a single free throw. Of Atlanta's 22 second-half free throw attempts, 12 came in the final 12:48 of the game. Yes, poor defense and good Orlando shooting rendered the other 10 second-half free throw attempts pretty meaningless as well but, let me repeat, in the second quarter, the Atlanta Hawks attempted 19 field goals and not a single free throw. Larry Drew's response to falling behind early was to play his worst possible defensive backcourt and the players' response was to double-down on jump shots. The Hawks used 20 of their 38 first half field goal attempts outside of 16 feet. Only seven of those were three-point attempts. Another four shots were taken between 12 and 14 feet.

The loss was comprehensive and, in every way, a team effort.

Orlando Magic 101 Atlanta Hawks 76

Boxscore

Team	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%		TO%
ATL	90	0.844	39.1	31.9	15.9		14.4
ORL	89	1.135	47.6	26.5	23.4		6.7

It's just one game and some history still awaits the Hawks if they can win at home on Thursday or even in Orlando on Saturday but the chance to record an, if not outright impressive, at least a feel-good series victory likely passed them by tonight. The Hawks took bad shots, their head coach created foul trouble where none yet existed, that choice put an inferior defensive unit on the floor for long stretches of the first half, the Hawks fell way behind, and they tried to catch up by taking more bad shots. A familiar tale for the 2010-11 Hawks.

The Magic also made jump shots tonight and thus didn't need the extraordinary offensive production Dwight Howard had provided through four games. Which isn't to say that Howard wasn't a factor offensively. True, Orlando took control of the game with Howard on the bench after he committed two early fouls and Larry Drew kept Kirk Hinrich on the bench after committing two fouls in the first half as the Hawks fell irreparably behind, saving his best defensive guard for meaningful minutes that rapidly ceased to exist but the Magic were able to neutralize, for the most part, at least within the confines of this uncompetitive game, Hinrich's defense when he was on the court by repeatedly making him partner with the immobile Jason Collins to defend the pick-and-roll.

By running their 1/5 pick-and-roll to the middle of the floor when Collins was in the game, Orlando largely negated Atlanta's heretofore effective pick-and-roll defensive strategy. By attacking the lane, Orlando forced help to come a long way from the corner which both exacerbated Collins' limited mobility and forced the Hawks to rotate to, rather than sit on, shooters on the three-point line.

Yes, a good portion of the margin of victory is due to Orlando shooting well rather than horribly. And, yes, some of the rest of that margin can be attributed to Atlanta's hideous offensive display. But Orlando made a tactical adjustment. One that worked. As one who feared, before the series began, that the Hawks had but one way* to beat the Magic, the necessity of Larry Drew making a counter-adjustment proves fertile soil, at least in the immediate aftermath of this game, in which to sow the seeds of doubt.

*The Hawks beat the Magic in Game 1 by outscoring them but the last four games make that appear even more of a one-off than it seemed at the time.

History Awaits

In lieu of a standard game preview (plus your Game 4 recap, if needed) and in the interests of perspective, let us be reminded that the Atlanta Hawks:

• Have not won a playoff series without holding home-court advantage since May 5, 1996
• Have not clinched a playoff series with a win on the road since that day
• Have not won a playoff series without playing the maximum number of possible games since May 1, 1987

Has it been pretty so far? No.
Have the Hawks won the series yet? No.
If they do win tonight, would it be, by the franchise's standards, historic? Yes.

Atlanta Hawks 88 Orlando Magic 85

Boxscore

Team	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%		TO%
ORL	90	0.944	40.5	26.6	21.3		14.4
ATL	91	0.967	50.7	16	17.9		17.6

Either prolonged exposure to this series is creating an illusion of coherence or Game 4 was the most Hawks/Magic game of this Hawks/Magic series. There were the requisite 88 points scored by the winning team, the terrible shot selection (both teams), the terrible shot-making (Orlando only), the improbably great yet perfectly representative, in kind if not frequency, shot-making of Jamal Crawford, a routine 29 and 17 from Dwight Howard, Jason Collins fouling, 19 unproductive minutes from hideously unqualified Hawk frontcourt reserves, the Hawks building a significant lead despite not playing very good offense, the Magic erasing that lead despite not playing very good offense, and the Hawks prevailing through some combination of the aforementioned Crawford and Collins plus an inefficient but impressive Al Horford, Joe Johnson being efficient but unimpressive for long stretches, Kirk Hinrich making Hawks fans so happy Mike Bibby's gone, and Josh Smith being inexplicable but not completely useless.

Oh, and Gilbert Arenas scored 20 points on 18 shots in 22 minutes.

Years from now, when looking back on this series, I contend we may remember this game* for that last fact. The possessions where Dwight Howard scored (or turned the ball over slightly too often) against single coverage, where Jamal Crawford compressed an entire contract year performance into a single series, where the Magic went from shooting a statistically improbably low percentage from the perimeter to an almost physically impossibly low percentage from the perimeter, those will begin, those may have begun, to run together in this oddly competitive playoff series that has featured few (successful) adjustments.

Then again, perhaps I just can't make complete sense of a series that has played out almost exactly inversely to my expectations.

*Game 1 will be the game the Hawks got to the free throw line, Game 2 will be the game Larry Drew...well, we'll have to come up for a name for whatever that was he did, and Game 3 will either be the game Zaza Pachulia sort of headbutted Jason Richardson once or the game Jamal Crawford banked in the game-winning three. All of this pending Game 5 and (if necessary) Games 6 and 7.

Playoff Game Preview #4: Orlando Magic (1-2) @ Atlanta Hawks (2-1)

TIP-OFF: 7pm (EST)

TELEVISION: TNT, SportSouth

CHAT: Daily Dime Live

GAME NOTES: Hawks/Magic

ATLANTA SUSPENSION/INJURY REPORT: Zaza Pachulia is suspended.

ORLANDO SUSPENSION/INJURY REPORT: Jason Richardson is suspended. Daniel Orton is out.

BY THE NUMBERS

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (off)	89.3	1.061	50.1	20.9	23.4	13.5
ORL (def)	91.4	1.018	47.5	29.5	23.1	13.4

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (def)	89.3	1.07	49.5	27.3	25.4	12.3
ORL (off)	91.4	1.077	52.1	22.7	26.1	14.5

head-to-head	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL	86.4	1.021	47.3	18.3	23.4	15.3
ORL	86.3	0.988	43.6	24.9	26.6	14.8

OTHER PERSPECTIVES: Magic Basketball, Orlando Pinstriped Post

FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY: Orlando -2, 178.5 o/u

PREVIOUSLY...the Hawks re-took the series lead with an 88-84 win on Friday night.

The Orlando Magic evened the series at one game apiece with an 88-82 win at home on Tuesday night.

The Atlanta Hawks won Game 1 of the series 103-93 in Orlando on Saturday night.

The Atlanta Hawks won three of four games from the Orlando Magic during the regular season, outscoring Orlando by 15 points cumulatively. The four meetings:

Orlando won 93-89 at home on November 8th

Atlanta won 80-74 in Orlando on December 6th

Atlanta won 91-81 at home two weeks later

Atlanta won 85-82 at home on March 30th

Consider this an open thread for all pre-game, in-game, and post-game (but pre-recap) thoughts.

Atlanta Hawks 88 Orlando Magic 84

Boxscore

Gameflow

Highlights

Team	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%		TO%
ORL	81	1.037	47.9	19.2	26.3		12.3
ATL	81	1.086	45.7	17.3	24.4		9.9

Since a lot had to go right on Atlanta's final offensive possession to secure victory in Game 3...no.

Jamal Crawford:

"I just tried to get to my comfort zone, my sweet spot. I felt pretty good getting there. I thought I got a good look, and it just happened to go down for me."

Larry Drew:

"I was hoping he would attack the basket. He was two or three feet behind the 3-point line. I didn't know if it was going in or not. I was just pretty relieved that it did go down."

Dwight Howard:

"I think Jamal Crawford's shot was lucky and an angel had to be sitting next to him when he let that one go, but he hits tough shots."

Since one thing had to go very right at the very end of Atlanta's final offensive possession to secure victory in Game 3, it's instructive to remember all the Hawks had to overcome to be in position for Jamal Crawford's prayer to get answered:

• Jason Collins injuring himself while flopping
• Zaza Pachulia crossing the line from irritant to participant in the 2011 equivalent of a fight (the definition of headbutt appears to have expanded to include "touching foreheads" as well) in a playoff game
• Lots of iso-Al
• Joe Johnson's 1-10 shooting in the second half
• Josh Smith making a heel turn into a spot-up shooter and purveyor of wild passes out of bounds
  
• Orlando making a greater number (8) and high percentage (28.6%) of their three-point shots than in the first two games of the series
• The reappearance of Josh Powell late in the second quarter, surely just coincidentally coinciding with Atlanta's biggest lead of the game getting halved in less than two minutes

The Atlanta Hawks are only playing consistently well on one end of the floor (and then only when fielding a five-man unit capable of executing the sound defensive game plan) but, even that limited, consistent success marks them superior to an Orlando Magic team that, Dwight Howard (and for one half of six, Jameer Nelson) excepted, has struggled to score and been just susceptible enough to dribble penetration from Jamal Crawford and Joe Johnson that the Atlanta guards have created enough good shots to augment their abilities to make difficult shots and to overcome their own team's (self-inflicted) defensive lapses.

You don't have to play well to win a playoff series if you make (and let) the other team play worse.

The Hawks had some excellent possessions on both ends of the floor in the final minute. At NBA Playbook, Sebastian Pruit looks at two of them. First, Al Horford's go-ahead bucket features beautiful player movement, ball movement, and spacing, three things lacking from most of Atlanta's second-half offensive possessions. Next, take a gander at Orlando's subsequent offensive possession for a vision of what Atlanta's defense might look like if the team's highest paid player didn't stop moving once he switches on a ball-screen. Also pictured, the more familiar sight of Al Horford chasing and harassing an opposing ball-handler (Hedo Turkoglu, in this case) all over the court, post-switch.

Stan Van Gundy on the culmination of that Orlando possession:

"It was a horrible shot."

Evan Dunlap on Zaza Pachulia, the fight, and possible repercussions:

[F]ormer Magic center Zaza Pachulia gave Howard almost all he could handle in the low post, forcing Howard to work exceptionally hard for each field goal attempt. And he managed to do it without sending Howard to the foul line too often.

And Pachulia may have swung the balance of the series more during an altercation with Richardson in the fourth period. Pachulia took an elbow from Howard--I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not, but it's worth noting Howard was not facing Pachulia when it happened--after fouling him hard under the basket. Pachulia shouted in frustration, Richardson apparently took exception to what was said, and the two shoved each other before their teammates stepped in. Richardson used his left hand to shove Pachulia in the face, which is sure to result in at least a one-game suspension. You may recall Quentin Richardson received a two-game suspension for a similar exchange with Charlotte Bobcats guard Gerald Henderson late in the regular season.

Jason Richardson and Pachulia are guaranteed to miss Game 4 on Sunday, though the league has yet to announce an official punishment. Howard's status is less clear. He earned a one-game suspension during the 2009 Playoffs for throwing an elbow at Samuel Dalembert, though in that instance he clearly intended to harm the Philadelphia 76ers center.

At Peachtree Hoops, Jason Walker on the oddity of the familiar Hawks having a 2-1 lead in a playoff series:

There were all there, in alarming number. All the things the Hawks fail to do, all the things the Hawks shouldn't do, all of the things that have cost them games time and time again were all over the Philips Arena floor tonight.

The Magic forced the Hawks into all of their bad habits and it's still 2-1, ATL.

Playoff Game Preview #3: Orlando Magic (1-1) @ Atlanta Hawks (1-1)

Alternate post title: Playoff Game Preview #3: Orlando Magic (0-1), Dwight Howard (1-0) @ Atlanta Hawks (1-0), Larry Drew (0-1)

TIP-OFF: 8pm (EST)

TELEVISION: ESPN2, ESPN3, Fox Sports South

CHAT: Daily Dime Live

GAME NOTES: Hawks/Magic

ATLANTA INJURY REPORT: Al Horford will be wearing protection on his bruised knee but will play when his head coach deems the team is neither "in a bit of a bind" nor going through a "good stretch."

Etan Thomas may miss the game due to a death in the family.

ORLANDO INJURY REPORT: Daniel Orton is out.

BY THE NUMBERS

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (off)	89.3	1.061	50.1	20.9	23.4	13.5
ORL (def)	91.4	1.018	47.5	29.5	23.1	13.4

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (def)	89.3	1.07	49.5	27.3	25.4	12.3
ORL (off)	91.4	1.077	52.1	22.7	26.1	14.5

head-to-head	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL	87.3	1.01	47.6	18.5	23.2	16.2
ORL	87.2	0.98	43	24.9	26.6	15.1

OTHER PERSPECTIVES: Magic Basketball, Orlando Pinstriped Post

FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY: Orlando -1.5, 181 o/u

PREVIOUSLY...the Orlando Magic evened the series at one game apiece with an 88-82 win at home on Tuesday night.

The Atlanta Hawks won Game 1 of the series 103-93 in Orlando on Saturday night.

The Atlanta Hawks won three of four games from the Orlando Magic during the regular season, outscoring Orlando by 15 points cumulatively. The four meetings:

• Orlando won 93-89 at home on November 8th


• Atlanta won 80-74 in Orlando on December 6th


• Atlanta won 91-81 at home two weeks later


• Atlanta won 85-82 at home on March 30th

Consider this an open thread for all pre-game, in-game, and post-game (but pre-recap) thoughts.

HoopSpeak: Koremenos: Atlanta's new pick and roll defense

Brett Koremenos pulls out the FastDraw to break down how the Hawks are effectively defending Orlando's 3/5 pick-and-roll.

Did Larry Drew Learn Anything From the Game 2 Loss?

He's not admitting so publicly. As reported by Michael Cunningham, Larry Drew has no regrets about sitting his best player for 21 minutes of the first half to stave of future foul trouble that never materialized, sitting his specialist starting center for eight-and-a-half minutes, and sitting his competent backup center for more than eleven-and-a-half minutes:

"When he picked up the early two fouls it put it us in a bit of a bind. You don’t anticipate your starters picking up two early fouls like that. When he went to the bench, had we hit a bad stretch at the start of the second quarter to the middle of second quarter, I would have put him back in. We actually had a really good stretch in the middle of second quarter, three minutes hit a bump in the road and jeopardize him picking up his third when we were going good."

There's no tangible value in Drew making a public confession regarding his incompetence, he just can't play his worst players at the expense of his best player and better players for long stretches of the game.

Will he resist the mystifying temptation? I don't know. Given that he largely moved away from the Horford Treatment and gave Josh Powell a non-playing role commensurate with his abilities as the season progressed, one could fairly concentrate real hard on Drew's ability to do so again while ignoring the incomprehensible (given the stakes) backsliding Tuesday night.

On the other hand, Drew quite clearly was far more interested in addressing the possibility of three of his players committing three first half fouls than how a Hawks lineup of Jason Collins, Josh Powell, Josh Smith, Joe Johnson, and Kirk Hinrich is going to get a rebound three minutes into a playoff game.

Other reactions to Drew's coaching job in Game 2...

John Hollinger (Insider):

[S]tudies have shown there may be some benefit to sitting a player in more dire foul trouble -- with more fouls than the quarter of the game, basically (i.e., two fouls in the first quarter, three in the second, four in the third) -- because such players will slack off on defense if they stay on the court.

Even by this logic, however, Horford should have been back on the court to begin the second quarter. Or, at worst, come back in with 8:44 left in the quarter after Jason Collins picked up his second foul.

Oh, did I leave that part out? Yes, the Hawks did the same thing with Collins, too -- their most valuable player this series because of his defense on Dwight Howard. Wanting to preserve Collins for the fourth quarter -- one he ended up not playing a minute in, because the Hawks were behind and Collins can't score -- Drew also sat Collins for the final 8:44 of the half with two fouls.

And Zaza Pachulia, the backup to those two players? Yes, really. Him too. He picked up his second foul with 11:22 left in the half and immediately hit the pine for the rest of the period. Can't be having players getting a third foul in the second quarter, after all, because if they get three more, they'll be forced to sit out. And there's nothing worse than having a player forced to sit out. Which is why Drew sat them out. My brain hurts.

Up 'til that point the Hawks had the game under control, with a 10-point lead. Soon things would change dramatically.

First, Josh Powell came in, after he mystifyingly was left activated while Etan Thomas didn't dress. (True story: I was talking to two NBA front-office types before a game this month and we were trying to come up with the worst player in the league. Without any prodding from me, both of them nominated Powell.)

Then came Hilton Armstrong, who managed to commit three fouls in his 5:20 stint but somehow stayed on the floor. Apparently the two-foul rule is waived for fifth-string centers.

Nonetheless, the damage was done. Orlando outscored the Hawks 26-10 over the final 8:44 of the second quarter, with Howard erupting for 17 points against Atlanta's scrubs.

There is no way to sugarcoat it: This is the most indefensible coaching decision I've seen this season. Horford played the entire second half and finished the game with -- you guessed it -- two fouls. This didn't come as a surprise to anyone who watched the Hawks this season. Horford has one of the lowest foul rates in the league at his position -- just 2.85 fouls per 40 minutes -- so even if he had stayed in the game with the two fouls he was at virtually no risk of fouling out.

Overall, when a real center was on the court the Hawks won Game 2 by 10 points. Unfortunately, Drew's personnel choices sabotaged them so badly in the second quarter that they missed a golden opportunity to grab this series by the throat.

Zach Lowe:

Stat-heads have been going nuts for years about coaches overreacting to foul trouble, to the point that a consensus was almost forming. So folks took notice at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March, when three researchers steeped in heavy math backgrounds presented a paper essentially arguing that coaches are right to take out starters in foul trouble early in games. After analyzing several years worth of play-by-play data, the researchers found that teams fared a bit worse when coaches asked guys to play through foul trouble in the first two or three quarters. No one is quite sure why, but the group behind the paper speculated that guys play too tentatively while in foul trouble, and that only the very worst bench players would play worse than a foul-plagued starter.

But here’s the thing: Even the thrust of this research goes against the kind of caution Drew showed Tuesday. The researchers defined “foul trouble” as any scenario in which a player’s foul total is greater than the number of the quarter at a particular time in a game. A player with, say, three fouls in the second quarter would qualify as “in foul trouble,” but the researchers took him out of the “foul trouble” category if he still had three fouls during the third quarter.

By this definition, Horford was in foul trouble with two fouls in the first quarter but would have been safe to re-enter in the second quarter — and stay in the game until he picked up his third foul. And critics at the conference considered even this definition of “foul trouble” a bit too conservative.

Horford played the entire second half. He finished the game with two fouls. That wasn’t shocking. Horford is not a foul-prone guy; he averaged just 2.6 fouls per 36 minutes this season, and he has cut his foul rate every season he’s been in the league. Add in the relatively low quality of Atlanta’s backup big men beyond Zaza Pachulia, and I’m willing to bet even the most conservative math would suggest that Horford should have been on the floor for at a chunk of the second quarter.

Horford is Atlanta’s best player. The Hawks will have trouble beating a quality team four times in seven games if their best player logs just 26 minutes for no good reason.

Zach McCann:

@ZachLowe_SI @hoopinion Well that is stupid.

Tom Ziller:

Larry Drew's mishandling of foul trouble and Horford's foul trouble in particular has been a constant lament for numerous Atlanta writers, but Tuesday's head-slapping (il)logic was just too much. Horford picked up his second foul just a shade over two minutes into the game. Drew unsurprisingly pulled him ... for the entire first half! That's right: Al Horford, the most valuable Hawk, played two minutes in the first half because Larry Drew didn't want him to be unavailable later on due to an ejection he was four fouls away from.

Horford played every second of the second half, and finished with ... two fouls. That's right -- a player who sat for 22 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble never actually sniffed foul trouble. He could have had five fouls in the first two minutes and not fouled out.

Drew has no concept of the reality that 22 minutes in the first half are just as valuable as 22 minutes in the second. It'd be hilarious if it weren't killing a playoff team as we speak.

Orlando Magic 88 Atlanta Hawks 82

Boxscore

Team	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%		TO%
ATL	86	0.953	43.8	13.6	28.9		17.4
ORL	86	1.023	37.8	29.5	43.5		18.6

No team deserves to win a playoff game when they put Josh Powell in before three minutes have passed. If that misappropriation of resources (and even categorizing Josh Powell as a resource seems wrong) fails to explain how quickly the good feelings engendered by Game 1 evaporated, take a gander at the shots the Hawks made in building their first quarter lead:

• Joe Johnson from 13-feet after having his first attempt blocked
• Josh Smith 8-foot hook shot over two defenders
• Kirk Hinrich 19-footer
• Kirk Hinirch 21-footer off the dribble
• Joe Johnson 31-footer as the shot clock expires
• Jamal Crawford three-pointer from the top of the key (assisted by Josh Smith from the post)
• Josh Smith three-pointer
• Josh Smith jump hook from the right block
• Jamal Crawford fall-away 28-footer at the first quarter buzzer

That's a lot of work for 22 points. (Note the absence of free throws.) Another coach might choose to count his blessings and get his best player back on the floor. Larry Drew decided to keep Al Horford on the bench for the entire second quarter and maximize Orlando's chances of winning.

Get this: Al Horford played the entire second half and finished the game with two personal fouls.

Also note: Dwight Howard played the entire game despite committing (gasp!) five fouls.

The Hawks, even after the intentional fouling, played the Magic even in the second half. Orlando outscored the Hawks by 12 during the second quarter, in which Al Horford did not play, Zaza Pachulia (8 rebounds in 19 minutes, finished with 4 fouls) played 22 seconds, Jason Collins (purported Dwight Howard stopper, finished with 3 fouls) played 3:38, fourth- or fifth-string center Hilton Armstrong (1 offensive rebound, 1 turnover, 3 fouls) played 6:33, and the aforementioned career-long and rightfully (albeit previously) demoted incompetent Josh Powell spent 2:11 on the floor en route to one foul and one offensive rebound. Dwight Howard scored 20 second quarter points.

The second quarter didn't finish off the Hawks, the other eight Magic players, who made just 18-66 shots from the field, saw to that despite Atlanta using 11 of 16 third quarter field goal attempts on jump shots (making two, as well as two of the five shots attempted in the paint plus three whole free throws) and not really coming alive until the fourth quarter was more than half over, futilely cutting a 12-point Orlando lead to two with 2:14 before letting Orlando score on consecutive possession with a long, unsuccessful, jump shot-resultant possession occurring in between.

It's difficult to argue that Orlando absolutely didn't play better than in Game 1. Perhaps, the volume of Atlanta jump shots were contested to a greater degree than is perceptible to the human eye. Certainly, they sent the Hawks to the line less often. Still, the Magic, Dwight Howard excepted, were woeful offensively and Howard scored 20 of his 33 points in the second quarter, 17 of those points with Atlanta's top three centers on the bench, three centers who finished the game having committed nine fouls between them, and no more than four fouls committed by any one of them.

As impressive and enjoyable as the Game 1 victory was, two concerns lingered: the probably unsustainable percentage of jump shots the Hawks made (unofficially, I have the Hawks 7-23 from 16-23 feet* and, thus, 40.7 eFG% outside of 16 feet once three-pointers are accounted for) and Larry Drew's tactical personnel decisions. In Game 2, the Hawks shot much worse and had a chance to win despite Larry Drew. It was a terribly wasted opportunity but, if Drew can either commit to playing his best players until they are disqualified or not play his worst players until absolutely necessary, the Hawks, in possession of home court advantage, can still conceivably win this series. Which is rather amazing considering they were outscored over the course of the 82 game season and their head coach either didn't try his hardest or proved himself obscenely incompetent in one half of their playoff games.

*That's 28.4% of Atlanta's shots being used on long, two-point jumpers. Less than in Game 1 and less than their season average.

Playoff Game Preview #2: Atlanta Hawks (1-0) @ Orlando Magic (0-1)

TIP-OFF: 7:30pm (EST)

TELEVISION: Fox Sports South, NBA TV

CHAT: Daily Dime Live

GAME NOTES: Hawks/Magic

ATLANTA INJURY REPORT: None.

ORLANDO INJURY REPORT: Daniel Orton is out.

BY THE NUMBERS

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (off)	89.3	1.061	50.1	20.9	23.4	13.5
ORL (def)	91.4	1.018	47.5	29.5	23.1	13.4

2010-11	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL (def)	89.3	1.07	49.5	27.3	25.4	12.3
ORL (off)	91.4	1.077	52.1	22.7	26.1	14.5

head-to-head	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
ATL	87.6	1021	48.4	19.5	21.9	15.9
ORL	87.4	0.921	44	22.5	23	14.4

OTHER PERSPECTIVES: Magic Basketball, Orlando Pinstriped Post

FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY: Orlando -8.5, 183.5 o/u

PREVIOUSLY...the Atlanta Hawks won Game 1 of the series 103-93 in Orlando on Saturday night.

The Atlanta Hawks won three of four games from the Orlando Magic during the regular season, outscoring Orlando by 15 points cumulatively. The four meetings:

• Orlando won 93-89 at home on November 8th
• Atlanta won 80-74 in Orlando on December 6th
• Atlanta won 91-81 at home two weeks later
• Atlanta won 85-82 at home on March 30th

Consider this an open thread for all pre-game, in-game, and post-game (but pre-recap) thoughts.