Archives For Brooklyn Nets

Hawks Playoffs Primer

David Vertsberger —  April 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

With the NBA Playoffs just over a week away, I went ahead and took a look at every (realistic) potential matchup the Atlanta Hawks may face in the postseason, and discussed how to go about coming away the victor, as well as giving my prediction.

 

Miami Heat (1st)MIA

Season series: Heat 4-0

3 Keys:

  • If there’s one thing you can take away from the abundance of Miami Heat highlight clips on YouTube is that they can run the fast break like no other team can. Turning the ball over against this squad is the equivalent of a death sentence, you may as well surrender two points and avoid having LeBron James fly over the top of you. This means trouble for Atlanta, who’s 22nd in the league in turnover percentage. The Heat will double the handler on every pick-and-roll, meaning point guard Jeff Teague, who’s matured a great amount since last year will need to be extra careful when controlling the offense. 
  • Miami finds themselves crushed on the boards often, ranking 26th and 24th in offensive and defensive rebounding percentage respectively. They rank 25th in total rebounding percentage, yet are still ahead of the Hawks who rank 27th in the league. It’s quite the head-scratcher considering Atlanta boasts a frontcourt of excellent rebounders in Al Horford and Josh Smith, plus their defensive rebounding percentage is 12th best in the NBA. Anyway, rebounding is Miami’s most glaring weakness and that’s where the Hawks need to take advantage. Now I’m not saying send all five guys to the offensive glass because that would be counterintuitive to the first key, so the load is basically on Smith and Horford, since Zaza Pachulia won’t be returning to the Hawks this season.
  • The Heat’s offense surrounds the skillful endeavors of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, their trio of superstars. However, a great deal of it comes from their role players nailing wide open long bombs off of a kick out from James, Wade, or Bosh. As effective and monumental as help defense is in today’s game, it must be used in a very limited fashion if you’re going to beat Miami, as all three stars are extremely proficient passers and will find the open shooter when doubled. Thus, individual defense is huge. The Hawks may not have a farm of talented one-on-one defenders, but Horford can check Bosh, Deshawn Stevenson defended Dwyane Wade in a Finals series two years ago, (which he won) and Josh Smith is athletic enough to somewhat stick with James.

Prediction: Heat 4-0

 

New York Knicks (2nd)NYK

Season series: Knicks 2-0 (one game remaining)

3 Keys:

  • The New York Knicks have been abysmal at guarding opposing point guards, When your best option is 35-year old rookie Pablo Prigioni, that’s probably what happens. What does this mean for the Hawks? It means they don’t Continue Reading…
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RECAP: Nets 93, Hawks 80

Bo Churney —  March 10, 2013 — Leave a comment

FINAL

BKN.gif(37-26) 93 – 80 (34-28) ATL

Key Performers:

A. Blatche (BKN): 18 pts, 4 reb, 2 ast, 4 stl
A. Horford (ATL): 15 pts, 12 reb
[FULL BOX SCORE]

Sometimes you just want to write up losses like this to the schedule, but… that doesn’t make it any more fun to watch. Every team is going to struggle after a loss where they get back home at 4am, and then have to be back up at the arena by 10am for shootaround. Larry Drew said postgame that it looked like his team had hit a wall and that they are going to have to fight through it, just like every other team in the league would have to do. In this game, the Hawks clearly hit that wall in the 2nd quarter, only scoring 14 points on 7-23 shooting. As for the rest of the game, I’m really not sure what you are supposed to do when Andray Blatche is hitting stepback 20-footers with a defender right on him; it’s just not your night, sometimes.

Reaction Grades: [assessed 0-10]

Josh Smith: I will probably say this a lot over this recap, but Josh simply looked tired. A couple of times he tried to post up and attack the basket, but he just looked too slow to get where he wanted. But hey, he only took three three-pointers in this one, so that’s an improvement, right? 4/10

Al Horford: Al really looked like the only player that had anything left in the tank in this game. However, you could see a little fatigue was setting in once his jumpers started going short. He did do some major fighting under the basket, though, coming up with seven offensive rebounds that led to him getting some easy tip ins. And even though the game was still tied after the first quarter, I feel like Al having to sit the final six minutes of that quarter because of foul trouble made a huge difference in this game. 8/10

Devin Harris: Harris was the high-assist man for the game with nine, plus he had zero turnovers. Like the other guys, though, there were points were it looked like he may have been struggling a bit with fatigue. His four fouls did stand out a bit though, including a rip-through attempt by Deron that he got called on. (of course, Jeff Teague didn’t get that same call earlier, but whatever) 5.5/10

Jeff Teague: Teague had zero assists for the entire game (he only played 22 minutes), and only registered seven points. In the first quarter, the only statistic he recorded was a missed shots. Considering that Larry Drew considers Jeff the spark that gets this team going, these aren’t exactly good things. 4/10

Johan Petro: Johan Petro scored 10 points in the first quarter. He was the Hawks leading scorer until Al Horford overtook him in the fourth quarter. He wound up only playing 14 minutes, but he still grabbed six rebounds and defended Lopez somewhat well. I’m not sure if he should have gotten more minutes, but he’s certainly making a case to stay in the rotation until Zaza comes back. 7/10

Continue Reading…

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Why the Hawks shouldn’t trade Josh Smith

Bo Churney —  February 12, 2013 — 10 Comments

Over the past few days, sources have said that the Hawks are currently in talks with the Nets about sending Smoove to Brooklyn. The rumored trade could be Kris Humphries, MarShon Brooks, and a first round pick for J-Smoove.

My first thought was that there was no way this rumor could be true, but reports continue to insist on its existence. I see why Brooklyn would want to do the deal, but this would make absolutely no sense for Atlanta.

Kris Humphries hasn’t been good this season. His defense isn’t really good and he’s been inefficient, although his rebounding is extremely solid. (as it’s been for his entire career) He’s also scheduled to make $12 million next year, which would be a strange way to spend all that cap space that Danny Ferry has been coveting. Continue Reading…

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RECAP: Hawks 109, Nets 95

Bo Churney —  January 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

FINAL

BKN.gif (23-16) 95 – 109 (22-16)ATL

Key Performers:

J. Teague (ATL): 28 pts, 4 reb, 11 ast
B. Lopez (BKN): 22 pts, 9 reb, 1 blk
[FULL BOX SCORE]

Sorry for the late post. (I confounded AM with PM on the auto-post feature) Anyways, the Hawks took up the challenge of Joe Johnson returning to the A and of Josh Smith being suspended. The Hawks keyed on Joe early, trapping him aggressively and forcing the Nets into tough, late on the shot clock jumpers. The Hawks were the most committed I’ve seen them to running up the floor, and both Devin and Al said in postgame that running was an emphasis and that it’s a fun way to play. (it’s weird, they literally both provided almost the exact quote on that) Also, and I can’t stress this enough, but ZAZA ALMOST HAD A TRIPLE-DOUBLE!

Reaction Grades: [assessed 0-10]

Al Horford: Al was quick out on the break a couple of times, but for the most part, he stuck to getting the ball to his guards and to getting in proper rebounding position on both ends of the floor. The result? Seven defensive boards, six offensive ones, and a couple of easy putbacks on the glass because of it. He did have a couple of crowd-raising dunks, but he also got crossed badly once by Deron Williams… 9/10

Kyle Korver: Kyle hit four two-pointers in this game (which might be a career-high), mostly off of curl plays that got him easy shots from about 15-18 feet away. On the defensive end, he was able to help harass Joe, and was even able to aptly defend Joe in one-on-one situations. He was a big part of Joe’s bad shooting night. 8/10

Devin Harris: Some people might have forgotten, but Devin was also playing against a former team as well. (he played for the Nets from 2009-2011) Devin was probably more committed to running in transition than anybody, and it looked like that mentality rubbed off on Jeff. He finished with a strong line of 18-4-5, with four steals as well. 8/10

Jeff Teague: This might have been the best game of Jeff’s career. 28 points on 12-18 shooting, 11 assists, and only two turnovers. You could tell JT had this game circled, as he had an emphatic block on Joe (which didn’t count due to a Lou-Will foul), which then led Teague to stare-down Joe for quite an extended period of time. Maybe he was just getting a couple of years of built-up frustrations out… 10/10

Zaza Pachulia: In case you missed it in my opening paragraph, ZAZA ALMOST HAD A TRIPLE-DOUBLE! He had a career-high eight assists (to go with 13 points and 11 rebounds), and was clearly working hard in this one. After the game, he joked that he would have gotten the trip-dub if guys had made shots. (hey, we only shot 58%) We also learned that Zaza has had a triple-double before… in the Georgian-leagues. 9/10 Continue Reading…

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Return of the Silent Star

Bo Churney —  January 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

Joe Johnson

Seven seasons. 21 points and five assists per game. Six All-Star selections and an All-NBA nod to boot.

Joe Johnson isn’t LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, or Chris Paul. You can easily argue that he was never a top ten player in the league, and point out that he only garnered two total MVP votes in his career.

But what you have to acknowledge is that Joe Johnson revitalized a franchise that had fallen into the fiery pits of NBA hell. In the six years before Johnson arrived, the Hawks only won more than 30 games twice, and were in a certain type of futility that resulted in a 13-69 record in the 2004-05 season.

And this highly-sought free agent wanted to come to this team?

Of course, Joe immediately made a great deal of impact on the court. Being the primary ball handler and number one option on a team for the first time, Joe led a team whose next best player was Al Harrington to 26 wins. (doubling the total from the previous year) After missing the playoffs for several seasons, Joe brought a sense that the future might actually have something to hold.

The next year, JJ was absolutely fantastic, averaging 25 points on 47% shooting, along with four rebounds and four assists. His season was cut to 57 games due to injury, however; but in those games he played like superstar and earned the first of his six All-Star selections in Atlanta. Continue Reading…

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HawksHoop Podcast, Episode 2

Bo Churney —  January 15, 2013 — 1 Comment

This time I was joined by Nubyjas Wilborn and Robby Kalland to discuss the Hawks’ 58-point debacle against the Bulls, possible line-up changes, and the return of Joe Johnson.

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