The Hawks played well when it really mattered for a change and pulled out a victory against the Pacers. Still, they managed to make some stupid plays and play poor defense on Stojakovic down the stretch and almost let the game slip away, but Joe Johnson — despite shooting poorly on the night — made some really clutch shots to help with the win.

The team scrubs saw some action in this one. I was pretty impressed by Anthony (”Solomon”) Grundy, who hit a 3 and handled the ball well. Did the Hawks sign him to a 10-day contract? I wasn’t sure why he was getting so much PT and some of the other jokers on the bench, like John Edwards, weren’t getting as much. John Edwards, man, they gotta let him go. I can’t believe we’re wasting any money on him. At least get someone who might have a chance of developing into a decent player.

I got good tickets through work for this one ($100 a pop), so Ashley and I had a pretty sweet view of the game. It’s amazing how different it is from so close. The court definitely looks smaller. And Dave and Quin, sitting in our usual seats, looked absolutely tiny. Almost everything is better in the good section: they even have vendors. I’m not sure who would pay $100 for a ticket though.

We’re hittin’ the home stretch, fellas, at least for the Hawks season. It’s good to see that we’re stepping it up on the recaps of other sporting events (NCAA tournament, Thrashers), and I hope we can continue on into the baseball season.

This game sucked, largely because from the first whistle, the Hawks couldn’t rebound the ball and weren’t hitting any shots. They got down early and never made any real progress to get back in the game. There was one mini-run at the end of the 3rd Quarter to cut the lead to 11, but the Mavs were back up by 19 four minutes into the 4th.

There were a lot of Mavs fans there; most of them with Nowitzki jerseys. I didn’t know he was so popular; it must be his striking Germanic looks.

I coached Ismail to refer to Mike as Tio Mile; this was probably the best entertainment of the evening.

On the Philips Experience level, they have a Spin to Win game where you spin a wheel with various prizes listed. I won 10 bucks in House Cash; Mike won Hawks wristbands. This is quite a find, considering the chance to walk away with a prize every game for simply spinning a wheel; everybody is guaranteed to win something because, unlike the Hawks, there are no losers.

No writeups of Mile’s glorious Bucknell weekend?

You know, I’m not very good at keeping stuff neat and clean. Except for my computer, where I’ve always been able to keep pretty meticulous files. Anyway, tonight I was looking through some old stuff on here trying to find something I’d written for SLAM a long time ago and I found this email from Pat expressing his love for Old Country Buffet, I believe from when I was doing a review of Old Country for Creative Loafing. I’m pretty sure Matt and I used to have this printed out on our fridge. This is from back in the day when Pat’s email address was “vapors1,” and I thought it was too good not to share it with everyone else…

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Tuesday, February 16, 1999 10:31:33 AM
From: vapors1@hotmail.com
Subject: ode to my kitchen
To: Lang Whitaker

Let’s face it: ol’ country is more than just a haven o’ culinary revolutions, we attend for ambiance. Especially on Sunday’s, when we tend to get the church crowd and we ain’t talk’n no Buckhead Baptists either. These holy rollers are “high on the hog” but not so high that they won’t come down to sample a little pig ass as well as the cheese grits which flow at ol’ country like wine flows to Hosea’s cup - salt of the earth, salt o’ the earth!

Boisterous, loving, obese, challenged, mannerless - these and countless other characteristics have been used to describe our clients. However, I challenge our “civilized” citizens to renew their vows of debauchery and visit our corner of decay. Yet oddly enough flowers grow in our black garden, virtue is not lost! Visionary, eccentric, romantic, and homely, ol’ country offers it’s clients more than just data for the organs, it offers us rebirth.

- for more info and quotes from actual customers respond to vapors.

Ismail and I went to the Thrashers game last night. Great atmosphere with a crucial match on the line for ATL. Right now, the Thrashers are one point out of the playoffs and needed to beat 4th in the Conference Buffalo to stay on pace. The Thrashers scored two goals in the first period to lead 2-0. In the second period, the Thrashers turned up the heat and scored three goals in the first 13 minutes. They scored another goal, but it was reviewed and taken back as the referee had blown his whistle for some unknown reason. By the 3 rd Period, the damage had been done and both teams looked to be just “Skating it Out”. A 5-0 shutout win for Lehtonen, who made 20 saves.

Not much exctiement off the ice-Ismail and I got drenched in the heavy rain after the game and I got chewed out by Janet for not having him wear a rain jacket.

Unfortunately, Marvin Williams Bobblehead Night didn’t bring out the best in the Hawks last night. They started off smoking, taking an 8 point lead by the last minute of the first quarter. They hit 4-5 threes and were nailing all of their mid-range shots. Then, unexplicably, the Hawks started taking it to the hole on every fucking possession in the second quarter, getting blocked at least 7-8 times or having the ball stripped. Why they went away from taking the outside shot is beyond me- they had not gone cold and then tried to pound it in the paint. With all of the size that Utah has, it was just a plain stupid game plan.

Third Quarter was back and forth, fourth quarter sucked as the Hawks just couldn’t get anything going. Four losses in the row- once again going on a slump after showing glimpses of brilliance.

They made me buy a ticket for Ismail- I guess he’s too big now to pull it off anymore. It was good while it lasted- I probably saved about $300-400 over the last two years.

I got the Golden State game late in the first. The Hawks were already down 9. The 2nd quarter was no better. It seemed like the Warriors were playing harder…chasing down loose balls, getting rebounds, making steals. Overall, It looked like the Hawks were going to take a second straight dump at home. Then, with just a few seconds left in the half, they flipped the script. Josh Smith (I think) made a great baseline-driving slam then, with time ticking away, Joe Johnson (I think) gets a steal, flips it to Smith (i’m sure) who hits a three a the buzzer. The intensity carried over to the second half. The Hawks played hard and were fun to watch. I can’t give you any details ’cause I was with a date. Needless to say, I wasn’t really focused on the game. BTW, Joe Johnson had a career high 42 points. I didn’t even notice he was scoring so much till I looked at the stat board late in the game when he already hade like 38 points.

On a side note: Am I the only one who finds it difficult to tell the difference betweem Josh Smith and Al Harrington. They’re both bald with red headbands, and, from our seats it’s hard to ditinguish between the 3 and the 5. I think one of them should be forced to wear a mustard yellow headband.

I wish I could give you some good recaps, but after a few days, I don’t really remember much about the Kings game. If you didn’t see it, you didn’t miss much. I do remeber the four bean burritos I got instead of my usual six tacos (It’s friday during lent). My farts were stinking up Philips, but not nearly as much as the Hawks. This was a loss like last year when the Hawks played like crap every game. There weren’t even any good celeb sightings to tell you about. It was overall a crappy game. We left with 3 minutes to go. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough.