Well, since no one else is going to post, i’ll throw my 2 cents in. The Hawks looked terrible vs. Charlotte; the crisp, unselfish passing, clutch shooting and key defensive stops, all hallmarks of the winning streak, were no nowhere to be found vs. the Bobcats. We were not moving the ball well, settling for jumpers, and no one stepped up when we needed them down the stretch. Al Harrington did just about everything he could possibly do to lose that game. I watch the highlight of that drive where we thought he got fouled; he did NOT get fouled on the lay-up-he just plain missed it. He did, however, get fouled with an albow in the chest after the shot, but it shouldn’t have affected a wide-open layup. In sum, either team could’ve won the game; unfortunately for us, no one on the Hawks decided to take charge and do so. Like Lang said, we have to win those games if we really intend to show some true improvement. You do not lose at home to an expansion team like Charlotte, especially when they were missing Okafor, Rush and May. No excuse for it.

I was hoping that the loss would be a one-off and that we’d recover versus Toronto, but we blew it down the stretch last night too. I hope all of the progress that we’ve made since SA is not going down the shitter…

Four in a row (@ Philips), mofo! Rise up! Despite 53 points from AI ( A Philips record), the Hawks battled back from a 12 point 3rd Quarter deficit to win 111-108 over the Sixers. Once again, several players came up huge, including Zaza with several buckets and slick moves in the paint and Josh Smith with some NASTY blocks on Iguadola and Salmons (who is this guy and why is he getting any PT?) in the final minutes. The team played very unselfish and did not let themselves fall apart once they got down in the 3rd Quarter. Ever since the San Antonio game, we’ve been a totally different team; there’s no way that BSA (Before San Antonio) we would’ve fought back, but ASA we’ve been in every game (minus Tuesday’s game at Miami).

Not quite a sellout, but a large crowd was on hand. Included in the stands were Mookie Blaylock (got the MOOOOOK call from the crowd), JD, Dallas Austin, Orlando Jones and Dawn Lewis (A Different World). There was a huge thug contingent out for AI last night; this makes me sick. These are probably the same idiots that claim to “represent” the ATL and wear Atlanta Braves hats, yet they can’t get behind the Hawks. Bullshit.

This was my first time seeing AI live; he was amazing. That guy finds holes in the paint where there are none. He did benefit from a lot of favorable officiating ( he shot 19-21 from the line), but most of the fouls were legit. He is fearless when he goes to the rack. I couldn’t believe he didn’t have the ball every possession of the last few minutes; instead the aforementioned “Connie” Salmons had the shots and missed most of them or turned the ball over. Webber looked OK, but his 16 and 11 were pretty much unnoticed. Iguodala had two nasty flushes, one off an alley-oop that he must’ve caught two feet above the rim.

One thing i’ve noticed is that the Hawks are not a good 3rd Quarter team; almost every game i’ve seen this season, we’ve come out flat.

This winning feeling is becoming habit forming; it’s a real rush to walk out of Philips with a win under our belts. With Charlotte, Toronto and New Orleans up next, we could very likely see 7 in a row. Whoulda thunk it?

Ismail, Cinko and I have collectively ascended to the apex of Philips Arena lore and acheived a feat that will go down in the annals of history- we completed the Spirit Tripleheader Weekend-two Hawks games and one Thrashers game. What made this weekend so magical was that it was an Atlanta sweep-three great wins. Dave was my Sherpa on this last trek; he is a man that knows the intricacies of the paths less taken.

Thoughts on the Game:

Joe Johnson continues to show why we spent the dough on him; he is playing great! 30 points again and he did a great job of distributing the ball and protecting it when we needed him to. When you compare his efforts to Carmelo’s (35 pts), you see that Joe Johnson doesn’t need 25 shots a game and Jordan Rules ( Carmelo shot 24 FTs to the Hawks 19) to get the job done.

Tyronn Lue with 5 threes? Unreal. Hitting a three with fives seconds left in OT was more than you could ever ask for from Tar Tar Links .

The OT was a microcosm of why this team is running on all cylinders over the past five games- everyone contributed. Al, Zaza, Chill, Josh, Ty, and JJ all stepped up with big buckets, rebounds and defensive plays to win that game. We basically played like crap for 2 1/2 quarters, but played lights out in the last five minutes of the 4th Quarter and all of OT to pull out the win.

Dave and I couldn’t help but to exude optimism after the game; I think it’s becoming increasingly obvious that this team can be better than just mediocre and might finally be showing more than just flashes of brilliance.

Stevie, I don’t think your .500-by-Jan.-31 idea is farfetched, but it will be tough. They play 21 games between now and then, and only 7 of those games are on the road. The problem is they’re 12 games under right now, so unless my math is wrong (which it very much could be) is that they need to go 17-4 to hit .500. Is this team even capable of doing that?

Maybe so. After today (Denver) and Tuesday (Miami), they play 12(!) straight games against teams with losing records. That’s pretty much unprecedented.

The other good thing is that they’ve already done their West Coast swing. So from here on it’s all doable, methinks.

Finally, the Nuggets were here in Jersey on Friday night and I talked with Carmelo, and he said they had two parties to hit in Atlanta on Saturday night, which could bode really well for the Hawks.

At the beginning of this week I had no idea that I would be completing the Philips Arena Trifecta this weekend- Hawks on Friday, Thrashers on Saturday and Hawks again on Sunday. The only ticket I knew about was Sunday’s game, but my father came up with Thrashers tickets on Wednesday and Steve called me Friday afternoon because no one was chomping at the bit to see two teams with less than ten wins go at it.

Steve, Ismail and I went down and arrived at 6:45. For the second time in as many games, they asked how old Ismail is; this time I said 2 1/2. They told me that next time he would need a ticket. I’m running out of entrances to try. Even though it was Steve’s 6th game already, he had yet to see the introductions with the Hawk flying down from the rafters and drum corps banging away. Ismail loved seeing the Hawk again. Last time he had a chance to see the Hawk up close but was too scared to approach it.

JJ went nuts in the first quarter; he couldn’t be stopped and had almost 20 points by the end of the quarter. The second Quarter belonged to Al Harrington; he picked up where JJ left off and hit a ton of threes. By the end of the first half, they were 8-8 from 3-pt. land.

Marbury started off super hot and had almost 20 by the end of the first quarter. However, the Hawks adjusted and were able to shut him down for the rest of the game. I remember looking at the stats with about five minutes left and he only had scored two more buckets since the first quarter.

The key to this game was that the Hawks never let the Knicks make a real run in the second half. If you follow the NBA game, you know its a game of streaks. However, anytime the Hawks would go on a scoring drought, they were able to make up for it defensively. In the end, they totally outplayed the Knicks and earned a well-deserved victory, their 3rd in the last 4 games. That Spurs game and Vote of Confidence for Woody have seemingly lit a fire under this team- they are playing with real enthusiasm and heart.

No real funny stories or calls to speak of- I had a Meredith Baxter-Birney call, but she was gone before I could make it public.

One down, two to go.

Maybe Lang is wrong. Maybe the team is rallying behind their beleaguered coach. Maybe they’re finally starting to understand his system. Perhaps we’re on the brink of a brilliant run…the Hawks at 0.500 by the end of January? Playoffs? Or maybe the Spurs just played like crap. This is the Hawks we’re talking about so, of course, it’s the latter. There was a stretch with about five minute to go in the game, the Hawks held a tenuous 6-8 point lead, and they seemed primed to perform their patented fourth quarter collapse, but the Spurs couldn’t capitalize. Childress came through in the end with some clutch shots, and the Hawks pulled off the upset. Bring on King James!

Apparently, the $5/$10 parking is based solely on individual players, and not the quality of the opponent. The Spurs have no one that the urban fanbase will show up to see. Todd claimed Manu Ginobili has a big following, but it wasn’t enough to warrant a $10 fee.

Mike got ripped off. He brought Ashley, and was going to buy her a $10 ticket. When he tried to give the ticket guy a ten , the dude said “that’s $25,” claiming the $10 seats were sold out. Of course, our section, prime $10 seating, was only half full for the game.

New route to Philips: Go all the way down Lucky. It will eventually turn towards Marietta and go straight into the tunnel. It’s also the way to get out.

With the Hawks out west, thought I’d post something to chew on.

Covering the NBA the last few years, I’ve always thought it was interesting how much stuff goes on behind the scenes that never really gets out there to the public. For instance, your (our) Atlanta Hawks…

I heard today that Coach Woodson nearly got canned before the Toronto game the other night. The Hawks owners are apparently ready to pull the trigger on him, but Billy Knight (a.k.a. Cassius Clay) is trying to convince them to give Woodson a little more time. Meanwhile, the players don’t care about each other or about Woodson (heard Salim and Marv are particularly anti-Woodson). Basically, the Hawks are a mess behind closed doors.

What will happen next? I’m guessing Woodson goes, soon, maybe before January. The owners could fire him now and make the fans think they’re pissed about how the team is playing, but the truth is, they’d have to pay Woodson anyway and they’d keep losing with a new guy, so they might as well keep him around until after the season.

Crazy thought I had: If they fire him and want to bring in a coach with Atlanta connections, that the city would probably root for and care about, that’s currently unemployed…how about Bobby Cremins, the uni-baller?

My brother was flying in town for the SEC Championship. He landed at 7PM. I parked at Phillips at 7:40, met him at MARTA, dropped his bag in my car, and made our way to the Arena. Everything was going perfectly, then we had to go to the game. We got to the seats just at the end of the first half to find the Hawks down 9 to the worst team in the league. After a hot halftime show involving some of the Hawks dancers in some sort of pyramid/table formation that would make the prison guards at Abu Graib blush, the Hawks staged their comeback. After one particularly bad Raptors possession, which ended in a turnover, my brother, who is always skeptical of pro sports speculated that these games are choreographed like the WWE. The ensuing bad pass out of bounds by the Hawks convinced him that we were simply dealing with two really bad teams. In the end, the Hawks came up just short, with Salim’s three-pointer at the buzzer giving the Hawks a one point loss. My brother was happy with the game. From his perspective, it was exciting, hard fought, and went down to the final seconds. As a Hawks fan though, you want more than hard fought games against the worst…sorry, second worst team in the league. The next morning on ESPN, they showed some Hawks low-lights. As the Sportscenter anchor put it, “it’s what the Hawks do, pass out of bounds, miss dunks, and step on the line.”

Highlight: During a time out, Skyhawk did a forward somersault dunk through a ring of fire. Suck on that, High Impact Squad!

Lowlight: Giving up the game-winning shot to Charlie “Powder” Villanueva.