New Height

Well, it's the Hawks against the Heat in the first round of the playoffs, and the Hawks will have home court advantage. I am not going to say I saw this coming before the season started, but I absolutely expected improvement from last year's 37-45 record and 8 seed in the playoffs. The Hawks were hurt by the loss of Josh Childress, but they absorbed that loss with Maurice Evans and Flip Murray. Due to that and the fact that the Hawks are a young team, I expected the Hawks to improve slightly and was looking for more of a 41-41 record and whatever seed this got the team. I figured that this record would give them the 7 seed and maybe if things fell just right the 6 seed. The experts were much more pessimistic than I was. I did not read one preview that had the Hawks making the playoffs. This leads to an interesting question, what exactly caused the Hawks to improve their record by ten games and move up in the pecking order of the Eastern Conference without any major personnel moves. Of course one can point to the young players playing together another year and maturing, but that would lead one to expect a more gradual improvement. One of the biggest changes was the addition of a legitimate three point shot to Marvin Williams' game. Which allowed him to really help stretch out the defense and open the floor for Joe Johnson to drive and Al Horford and Josh Smith to work down low. This certainly helped on the offensive end. The additions of Evans and Murray helped extend the bench allowing Coach Woodson to play 8 guys as opposed to the 7 he played last year. Anytime you can have a deeper rotation will be a good thing as foul trouble becomes less of an issue as well as injuries and cold shooting nights. The top 8 for the Hawks are very solid and should be able to compete on a consistent basis. This team as expected was very strong at home. However, the Hawks were once again not very successful on the road. The Hawks are young and will have a pronounced difference in the road/home performance. I am very pleased with the improvement the Hawks have shown and fully expect them to win their first round series against the Heat. However, this Hawks team has not lived up their full potential. This team should never lose back to back games to the New Jersey Nets, a lottery team, as they did this season. This team should never trail a division rival by 50 points in a game, as this team did to Orlando this season. There is a theme here, it seems to come down to effort and determination. I realize that players like Josh Smith are enigmas that may never be figured out by me or anyone else, so I expect some effort issues from him. The thing that concerns me here is that the Hawks seem to follow Mike Woodson. He rarely stands during a game and when he does he typically looks more confused than anything else, which does not inspire confidence. He is not an overly vocal coach, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, this team's captain, Joe Johnson, is also quiet as a mouse on the court. While his workmanlike mentality is often something to admire, he also does not inspire his teammates to give more effort the way a number of NBA stars do. The Hawks do not have to fear the wrath of Johnson after they make a defensive error or take a bad shot. Mike Woodson also does not seem to have any counter to when his players do not show effort or make bad decisions, which leads to the question, "Who holds the Hawks accountable for their effort and decision making?" Someone must, but it is not clear who. From my view, Al Horford seems to be the most natural leader on the Hawks roster, but he is a second year player and while he can certainly lead by example and even be vocal from time to time, he does not carry the same weight that the coach or a team veteran has. If this team made better decisions and played with maximum effort every night, they may not improve their playoff seed, but they would absolutely have made their 50 win goal. In which case this team, might be viewed as more of a real threat in the Eastern Conference and then be able to attract more free agents. This team needs a vocal leader in order to take the next step, someone who will hold the team accountable for their effort and decision making and taking plays off to complain to the officials, which Josh Smith is famous for. I do not see anyone on the Hawks roster as it is currently constructed being able to really take a hold of that role since the most likely candidate will likely not be taken as seriously as would be necessary. In that case it seems that this accountability would need to come from the top, meaning the head coach. Woodson has had years to take that role, but has failed to do so. Due to Woodson refusal to take this role I believe that even though the Hawks improved their record significantly, they must let Woodson go and find a coach who will be able to get more out of these players as they certainly have it in them. Perhaps a coach like Avery Johnson would be able to do this as he is know to be a hard driving disciplinarian. Now, I know you may be saying that the Hawks would likely not react well to this, but as it always seems to go teams must rotate from strict coach to player's coach and it seems that Woodson runs this team as more of a player's coach. It is in fact time for a change at the top on the Hawks sideline. I do not see this happening unfortunately, since it will be somewhat difficult to fire Woodson after he has improved the record every year he has been with the Hawks.

Big City Classic

So I just watched the North Carolina-Virginia lacrosse game from the inaugural Big City Classic (Classic in name only, and will thus be known here after as the BCCINO). North Carolina came into this game with plenty of adversity surrounding the program. They had last 19 straight ACC lacrosse contests dating back to an 11-9 victory of the Virginia Cavaliers in April of 2004. Carolina has lost games in every way imaginable during this stretch, they have been blown out, lost in overtime, seemingly not shown up, and even had a game winning goal deflect off of two UNC sticks before taking a bad hop into the goal against Maryland two weeks ago in their last ACC game before the BCCINO. Needless to say UNC and first year Coach/alumnus Joe Breschi are hungry to break that streak. UNC also came into the game down one of their top defensemen in Jack Ryan. UVA was undefeated coming into the game and the unanimous number one team in the country. This game was going to be a struggle for the Heels no matter what, with that kind of setup. In addition to the 500lb gorilla on the back of each UNC player especially the seniors, the team was stranded in the Raleigh Durham Airport from 10:00 A.m. to 10:00P.m. They missed their practice at the meadowlands and did not make it to their hotel until after one Saturday morning. Both teams came into the game off of overtime thrillers, UNC defeated Johns Hopkins in overtime at home on Fetzer Field, UVA had a seven overtime thriller giftwrapped and handed to them against Maryland the previous week after the referees blew an inadvertant whistle stopping a Maryland fast break that resulted in a goal in the first overtime and then even tried to allow UVA to keep their goalie Adam Ghitelman in the game when he clearly committed a foul. Anyway, this game was important to both squads. The game started horribly for UNC. After each team had an offensive possession and got settled in, UVA took possession and Shamel Bratton drove and took a strange looking shot that must have been deflected and sat nicely right in front of the goal where UVA picked it up and fired it home for the first goal of the game. On the next possession within 30 seconds, Billy Glading drove to his right from behind and scored by reaching around his defender. Everyone clad in Carolina blue had a sort of "Oh no, here we go again" look. However, Billy Bitter was able to corral a loose ball in front of the goal and get a garbage goal of his own to keep the Heels within striking distance. The teams traded a few more possessions before Michael Burns, a defensive midfielder for UNC took advantage in transition of the fact that UVA's second midfield consisted of converted attackmen and drove to his right and scored on a nice running high to low jump shot. With the game knotted at two, Billy Bitter took over for UNC. He took Ken Clausen to the woodshed consistently in the first half. It was the same move every time, but Clausen the All-American had no answer whatsoever for the slick sophomore from Vermont. Bitter would use his top end speed to drive to the left side of the goal from behind and once Clausen turned his hips, Bitter planted his left foot and stopped immediately cutting back behind Clausen to the right and squezzing a shot in as he ran to the goal. UVA was very slow to adjust to this. The first two times, there was noslide whatsoever to help Clausen. It became clear that UVA was grossly mistaken in which player had the mismatch between Bitter and Clausen. UVA began to bring a slide, the first slide missed Bitter completely as he sidestepped the defender and was allowed to not only fake and finish on Ghitelman, but even was able to stay on his feet afterward, which must have been frustrating for Ghitelman. The next time, the slide came, but was too late. It seemed as though Ghitelman perhaps should have made the save on this shot as Bitter shot as he was fading away and decreasing his angle, but was still able to find just enough space to squeeze the ball in high over Ghitelman's shoulder. The game took a very dramatic turn in the first half when first North Carolina's stellar freshman defenseman Charlie McComas, their top cover defender, went out with a shoulder injury. This was followed by Grant Zimmerman, UNC's captain and All-American goalie came out of the crease to corrall a loose ball and took an awkward step, which resulted in what one can only guess is a torn ACL. The reply while not on Joe Theismann or Willis McGahee level was stomach turning. Zimmerman was playing extremely well when he went out. He allowed the first two goals, but made a number of key saves following that and limited rebounds. He made some superb outlet passes that created transition opportunities for UNC. North Carolina was able to get a lead of 7-3 in the first half before Zimmerman went out. Zimmerman's replacement, freshman James Petracca, played admirably. He was understanably cold when he first came in and gave up an early goal to Danny Glading, which I am conviced if properly warm, he would have had easily. He made a number of saves that were impressive. The only bone to pick with the game he played was that he did not consistently control the rebound, which resulted in multiple UVA goals, those goals unfortunately decided the game. I am operating under the assumption that Zimmerman's season and career as a Tar Heel are over, which is incredibly sad to see a young man work the way he has and even come back from a previous knee injury to have it all end on a freak play and an awkward step, I hope he is able to come back and feel awful for him. I can't imagine, the emotional pain he must be going through. Now for Petracca, he seems as though he can grow into a high level goalkeeper for the Heels, now that he will get all the reps in practice with the first team defense, I think he will improve at a rapid rate. Also, there is very limited film on Petracca, which may help UNC as teams will not be sure of the best way to attack him. Now, in this game UVA was able to take advantage of a undermanned Tar Heel team winning by a final of 11-10. I do not write this to make excuses for North Carolina, they should have won the game in spite of all of this adversity. They had plenty of opportunities and were unable to finish. They hit the posts a handful of times, any one of those goes in and its a different game and maybe I am not focused on the future of Petracca, but rather the gutty performance on UNC. This team showed a lot of heart and did not seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop as it unfortunately did. This game should show the promise of the future for this Carolina team. They will be very dangerous come the ACC and NCAA tournaments. I don't think anyone is going to want to play them come May.

Opportunity Wasted

How many times is Josh Smith going to score 33 points on 12-15 shooting and 3-3 from three point land? Once that's how many. Unfortunately the rest of the Hawks left their offensive game in Atlanta with the possible exception of Flip Murray in his homecoming. Unfortunately the Hawks 27 turnovers. That is inexcusable. I think church league teams average less than that. Mike Bibby is one of the league leaders in assist to turnover ratio, but still the Hawks were unable to hold on to the ball enough to even threaten Philadelphia. Anytime Bibby and Joe Johnson fail to make a shot in the first half the Hawks are going to lose. The only reason it was even close was due to completely uncharacteristically efficient offensive outburst from Josh Smith. Although, it was to be expected by anyone who has watched the Hawks all season. They rarely have energy on the road and this was no different. The Hawks were once again a step slow to the loose balls and also managed to give up a number of layups and easy baskets, then when the Hawks did play good defense, they allowed a tip in or offensive rebound. I dream that someday the Hawks will show up for a road game with some energy and enthusiasm. I get the feeling that this is directly related to Mike Woodson, while he has gotten an improved win total each season, he also sits on the bench and watches the game and can not seem to get maximum effort from his players. He also is too stubborn to move away from his strategies if they fail. He allowed Tony Parker to drive to the basket whenever he wanted to by never changing his strategy away switching on picks. Offensively, he feels "the offense will take care of itself." That's a great strategy. You think Phil Jackson or Greg Poppovich would ever say that. The Hawks offense rarely shifts away from Joe Johnson driving one on one, and while that sometimes works well, even Joe Johnson has an off night. Even when a post player has a mismatch Woodson will not shift the focus to moving the ball through the post. The Hawks almost always win when Josh Smith and Al Horford have matching double doubles, but they rarely get enough offensive opportunities to both score at that rate. Here's hoping Rick Sund sees this as clearly as I do and decides that Avery Johnson or perhaps Flip Saunders is a better fit with this squad. Although it may be tough to justify it since that Hawks have improved by almost ten games this year. Perhaps next year the Hawks will not waste these golden opportunities.