more coming later today…
Archive for February, 2009
Yesterday is done, but tonight!
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Fingers Crossed
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009Hawks Update: In ESPN’s Streak For The Cash today, you can pick Al Horford’s point total vs the Lakers margin of Victory. Easy W for Al right here!!
Hawks and Lakers Tonight
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009So I think a few Stotts Era writers and fans are going up to Taco Mac/Hudson Grill at Winward in Alpharetta to watch so feel free to join us. I’m betting we end up at T-mac. Now for the preview:
Game: Hawks (31-21 – Won 2) at Lakers (42-10 – Lost 1)
Date: February 17th, 2009, 10:30 PM
Where: Spales Center in beautiful Los Angeles, CA
TV: SportsSouth Channel 53, HD too!
Odds: Lakers – 8.5, O/U 213.5
Last Games: Hawks 99 Pistons on 2/11 in Auburn Hills
Lakers 109 Jazz 113 on 2/11 in Salt Lake City
Last Matchup: Lakers 122 Hawks 93 2/19/08 in LA
Key Lakers:
| Scoring | Kobe Bryant (Philly) |
27.7 |
| Rebounds | Pau Gasol (spain) |
9.4 |
| Assists | Kobe Bryant | 5.0 |
| FG% | Pau Gasol | 56.0 |
| FT% | Kobe Bryant | 86.9 |
| 3PT% | Derek Fisher (Arkansas – Little Rock) |
41.6 |
| Blocks | Andrew Bynum | 1.9 |
| Steals | Trevor Ariza (UCLA) |
1.5 |
The Game: Welcome to the first game after the all star break. I think puts it a little bit in the Hawks favor. The Lakers coming off a loss in their last game before the all star break probably won’t remember it as much and won’t be that pissed about it. Meaning they won’t come out all gangbusters thinking that gotta win tonight. The Hawks of course have a good starting five and those five being well rested will give us at least a leg up in that category. And hopefully Joe got all his crappy play out of the way in Phoenix over the weekend. Unfortunately we’re playing without Flip Murray who is going to miss the next two games (tomorrow against Sacramento) because of a family emergency. We here at Stotts Era hope everything is okay with the Murray family but in basketball speak it is a big hurt to the Hawks, as Ronald is clearly our sixth best player. I saw him mentioned in some six man of the year talk on some sites. This means we really need Joe and Bibby to score some points. I think they need to go for at least 45 combine for us to have a chance.
The Lakers are without the services of Andrew Bynum who has a torn MCL and is going to miss at least two months. But the Lakers are 6-1 without him. Either way it helps the Hawks in that we really don’t go deep in the bench when it comes to big men and now they won’t have to be fouling Bynum all day.
Kobe Byrant is on the Lakers in case you forgot and he is easily the best player in the NBA. I don’t think he is going to let the Lakers lost to the Hawks. He is probably still pissed about the Hawks winning in Atlanta next year. He is that good that he remembers random stuff like that. The Lakers start Byrant – Gasol – Fisher – Lamar Odom (Rhode Isand, in place of Bynum) – Luke Walton (Arizona). The key for the Hawks will be to bot let the role players on the Lakers like Fisher and Odom beat them. Let Kobe have his points, if we can shut down everyone else we can keep it close and sneak out a road win. Only six wins until we reach last year’s win total, seeya at the Mac!
Oh yeah and Speedy Claxton is out and this guy want to get back at his old team:
Update: Apparently the Lakers are all pissed off at each other. Honestly I don’t think this bodes well for the Hawks. And for some reason I really like the +8 (and the under) so the Lakers will probably be good tonight. Here are some pissed Lakers:
Joe in the All Star Game
Monday, February 16th, 2009Rough. At least he got a free meal out of it.
ht.
yes
Friday, February 13th, 2009
‘Nique is just so timeless
Friday, February 13th, 2009
Christmas. My birthday. Give me a gift day is coming up.
http://www.biggsports.com/servlet/the-32194/McFarlane-NBA-Legends-Series/Detail
I could beat you and Marvin Williams in pong
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Especially if he is wearin’ a suit
Hawks over D-Troit
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Sorry about lack of timely, complete posts recently, I really have no excuse. I am making it up with a timely and complete post right now just hours after the Hawks have defeated the Pistons in Auburn Hills. Although I didn’t watch the game, I was in the Highlight Factory tonight (or Blueland) at the Thrashers (who are terrible) game and I was in a suite, where the Hawks were on TV. So I am gonna try to put in a recap by dissecting the box score and by remembering the bits and pieces of the game I watched. Also I am listening to the Winterhawk All Star jam right now, its delicious, let me know if you want a copy.
From the box score two things jump out at me and they are both a little negative. First I looked at how Mike Bibby did and it does not look good. 5 points, 4 assists, 3 turnovers. Doesn’t appear to be a great night. Also, I see the Hawks went again with the 8-man rotation, DNP – Coach’s Decision’s given to the IV, Solo, Randolph Morris and Mario. I suspect this is what we are going to have to do down the stretch and in the playoffs too close games. Although it’s not the worst strategy in the world (and we are going into an all-star break where everyone will get some rest) it would nice to see the IV or even Solo play a QUALITY 10 minutes or so.
Flip burned his old team and filled in where Bibby left off, scoring 23 on 18 attempts. Joe scored 27 and J Sandpaper chipped in with 10 points, 7 boards and 7 assists. Exactly what we need from him every night. Really wish he wouldn’t shoot 12 times (1 for 5 on shots out of his range) and he went 0-2 from the line, but I’ll take the assists any day of the week. For Detroit, Iverson had 28, but I’d suspect on Iverson’s higher scoring games the Pistons probably lose more. Not sure if that is a fact or not but apparently he is not working out like they though in Detroit. Rasheed Wallace was a non factor against his former team with 9 points and ended up sitting out the last 16 minutes of the game. Said Pistons coach Mike Curry, “his knee was bothering him.”
The Hawks have now won four of five and this is our best record at the All Star Break in 10 years. The win puts us 3.5 games ahead of Detroit for the fourth spot in the East, which is huge because: 1) home court advantage; 2) we would like to stay as far away from the sixth seed as possible to avoid the “big three” in the East. It is nice to keep Detroit struggling and with all the bad play we have had this first half (Sekou says it best, “I’ll be the first to admit that the Hawks bi-polar routine can get a little old sometime,”) the Hawks are still 10 games over .500 with a strong hold on the four seed. I was very interested to see the outcome of this game. I knew the Clippers game would piss the team off and the Wizards were the perfect remedy to cheer the Hawks up. But how would they respond in Detroit mattered and they could have mailed it in going into the break. But these Hawks rise up when they know it is a big game and last night was one of those games.
Hawks Blow Out Wizards
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009Last night the Hawks and Wizards game was not televised, so I listened to most of the game on radio. Since I listened to game on radio I have to comment on Atlanta Hawks announcers, Steve Holman and D3 (Dennis Scott). Steve Holman is in his 24th season as the voice of Hawks. He is a great announcer, but is getting very negative. D3 who most of you will remember his days at Georgia Tech and Orlando Magic is a horrible announcer. How did this guy get this job? He loves talking about the home advantage at the Highlight Factory!! From, what I recall D3 never played for the Hawks and the only reason why he has this cupcake job is that he played at Georgia Tech.
Anyways, the Atlanta Hawks took control of this game from the start. Mike Bibby suited up tonight and returned as our floor general. He led the Hawks to 111-90 win against the Gilbert Arenas less Washington Wizards. Arenas and our own Speedy Claxton are battling it our for scamming their clubs of millions of dollars, while sitting on the bench most of the past three seasons. Joe Johnson led the Hawks with 22 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists. It was good to see Johnson back in form and shooting a respectable field goal percentage of 56 percent on 9 of 16 shooting. This was the first game in awhile that I have seen the Hawks take control from the start. The Hawks ourscored the wizards 24-17 in first quarter and did not look back from there. This is the kind of game I was expecting against the Los Angeles Clippers. The Hawks have to win these types of games and it was good to see our starting five all on the floor together again. On a historical note the Hawks set a record of most wins prior to All-Star break of 30. This is the most wins by Atlanta Hawks team since the 1997-1998 season. This was Pre-Stotts Era, so I will not comment on who we had on that squad, etc.
The Hawks play the Detroit Pistons tonight and it is possible the Pistons will be without Allen Iverson who is suffering from the flu. I am looking forward to watching the Hawks win and get 10 games over 500 before the All-Star Break.
Fantasy News/Last Night in NBA: I traded away New Jersey Center Brook Lopez for Milwaukee forward Charlie Villanueva. My colleague Penguin also desperately wants Kobe Bryant. Also, Bron you fouled Danny Granger last night. It was not the worst call on the planet. I do not care if there is .4 remaining on clock, you cannot mug another player. Thanks Bron and keeping whining about it.
Solo was our best player last night (Laker game recap)
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009And that’s not a good thing.
Hawks got spanked by the Lakers last night 96-83 in a game that was not even that close (we won the 4th quarter 23-10). When we should have let Kobe have his points and not let the role players beat us, Kobe had a season low 10 and six Lakers got into double figures. Paul Gasol had a triple double and Lamar Odom had 20 rebounds. I’m not sure where to get the stats on this, but I’m sure the Hawks are in the top of the league in giving up offensive rebounding.
You know it was a bad game for the Hawks when under “Top Performers” on Yahoo’s game recap it features Zaza for the Hawks. Honestly in recapping how the Hawks did last night I don’t know where to start. Joe is soft. He can’t take over anything. He is our best player but he cannot get the team in the game, intensity wise. If we are going to be intense as a team it is usually started but someone else (see Zaza or Horford in the playoffs last year). It would be nice for Joe to actually show some emotion and get the rest of the team excited. But we need to realize that is never going to happen. And the best player on a team needs to do that once in a while for a team to prosper. Joe and Bibby combined point total last night was 23. No way the Hawks would have a chance against the Lake show with that showing. Bibby actually 9 in the first quarter which the Hawks ended up leading by one. But he disappeared after that with no points the rest of the game. It would have been nice to see someone get pumped about that and hold the lead but the Hawks decided to play uninspired ball and let Paul Gasol and Jordan Farmer beat them from that point on.
Sandpaper had a big ZERO rebounds to Gasol’s 13 and Odom’s 20. And he should have been well rested after having most of the last week off. The zero boards were the least he has had since the game he was injured in earlier this year and before that, not since his rookie season. Do these things just happen? Where is the intensity you are playing the best team in the NBA show what you are made of! Of course the IV got way too many minutes and went a miserable 2 of 9 from the field. Take it to the rim Acie. If you look good enough another team will want you more and you can get the heck out of Atlanta.
The rest of the B-Team was filled out by Solomon Jones who has no right to be on the Staples Center floor but looked not terrible last night. The Mario West had a career high 5 steals (he never had more than 2) and career high tying 7 points in 7 minutes of action. The hustle is not going to get him anywhere though.
Random Stats of the night (as mentioned above):
Josh Smith had only his 6th zero rebound performance of his career. He only has 7 one rebound games as well.
Mario West had 5 steals. He had never had more than 2 which he completed in 3 other games. All four career games of 2 steals or more for Mario have been in Hawks losses.
Mario had 7 points, which tied a career high. He had two 7 point games last season, both coming in wins.
Also, don’t forget the Lakers are the best team in the league playing on their home gym. Hopefully the Hawks learn something from this game and don’t come out flat against one of the worst teams in the Association, the Kings.
Kobe had a lot of time to chat it up last night
Tags: lakers
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