the gospel according to pops (vol. 1):
We went to the game last night. Some firm Rosa does business with has superb club level seats, on row D, about even with the foul line at one end. Our heads were just bit higher than the players. Almost perfect.
Of course it was nice they won. Johnson, 28; Harrington, 20; Lue, 15; Williams, 13 (including at least four really sweet jumpers.)
But the main benefit of seeing thing up close was watching them play defense. Or not play. Harrington and Pachulia are just awful on the rotations. It's like they are glued to the floor when someone gets past a guard and heads to the hoop. Stoudamire has no instincts at all and Smith constantly gets lost. Lue isn't a quick as he used to be, but he's still decent. Johnson, Childress AND Williams played good "d." Johnson was superb all around. Both Williams and Childress played great on the ball, and both rotated really well a couple of times at important moments in the second half.
My conclusion is the Hawks should not even consider resigning Harrington, even if he is a vocal team leader. They have signed Pachulia for multiple years. Harrington has been in the league five years and still has no sense of team defense. You just can't have a good team with TWO guys who don't rotate at the back of your defense, especially if one of your guards is Stoudamire. Keep Harrington until the deadline approaches, so Williams has time to break in slowly, then get what you can for him and play Marvin a lot the last few weeks.
On the other hand, maybe Woodson values defense, as he constantly says, but has no clue how to teach it.
Or all of the above.
On a positive note I will say this. Marvin's jump shot really is a thing of beauty in person. I've never seen a sweeter one, ever.
posted by Huevos McGringo at
3:46 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Huevos. Do the Hawks need to hire a new head coach? Is that the answer to their woes? They've already completely revamped the players on the team in the last couple of years; that's what i read in a recent AJC editorial (I'm just starting to follow the Hawks now that I'm officially an Atlantan. Plus, if the kids at my school read 25 books by March, we get to go to a Hawks game for free!)
hard to say, deuce. the hawks are definitely not playing up to their talent level. but then again, they're very young, and they lack both a quality point guard [shed a tear for chris paul] and a shot blocker.
they definitely shouldn't fire woodson during the season; i'm rarely a fan of that move. but, as mentioned, woodson is supposed to be a defensive minded coach, yet his team plays awful defense and doesn't seem to be getting better at it. something has got to give at some point.
the kind-of good news is that it looks like they may get another good draft pick to finally get the point guard they need. maybe a marcus williams (you know, the uconn guy who stole the laptops). or perhaps rondo.
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