Stotts Era

Any win on the road for the Atlanta Hawks is a good win especially, with star Joe Johnson sidelined with a viral infection. While the Hawks are 18-5 at home there road record of 10-15 is not to boast about. Mike Bibby led the Hawks with 24 points and 7 assists, but the real bright spot in the game was Marvin Williams in my opinion. Marvin finished the game with 23 points and 10 rebounds. Marvin said this about the Hawks win, It’s huge,” Williams said of winning without Johnson. “It shows the growth of our team not having him in the lineup and still coming away with a win.”(ESPN) I feel the real key to the game was the defense of the Atlanta Hawks. They held the Twolves to 17 less free throw attempts and to 36 percent shooting from the field. The Hawks also forced the Twolves into 18 turnovers.

Some negative spots in the game were the Hawks free throws made. The Hawks shot 25-38 from the charity stripe, which is not going to get it done against top tier NBA teams. J Smooth shot 3-8 from the free throw line. J Smooth or (J Sandpaper) has been horrid from the line as of late. The Hawks also committed 18 turnovers like the Twolves, which is way too high.

I don’t want to shy away from the great win in Minnesota. Years ago the Hawks would have lost this game or even tanked it. Some other bright spots in the win was getting Al Horford back in the line up. Al did not particularly have a great game especially for his standards, but his overall leadership and presence has been sorely missed. Another bright spot was the play of Acie Law IV. The stat line will not show it, but I feel like Acie was a spark off the bench for the Atlanta Hawks. I would like to continue to see Acie log 10-15 minutes each game. This is because I would like to see Bibby and Joe get some rest, and just in case we do not resign Bibby I would like to see Acie gain some experience. Overall a pretty good game for a Joe-less Atlanta Hawks. Look for Charlotte Bobcat and Los Angeles Clippers previews. Also, come down to the Highlight Factory on Saturday for Clark Howard Night. Thanks.

Tags: T-Wolves

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Game Recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.