I finally made it to a Hawks game this year, and they didn’t disappoint. I planned to meet Mike and Ashley at our seats, so bvefore the game I went to the CNN Center for some food. I was eating my 2nd to last Taco and watching Lou Dobbs, when the guy at the table next to me got up, leaving some stuff on his table. He said, “I’ve got to find a place to plug in my phone, you gonna be here a minute?” I opened my mouth to say I would be getting up soon, but before I could speak he gets in a huff and says, “Alright, I’ll be done in a flash!” Whatever…

I’ve heard much about the Wheel, but I never did spin it last season. I decided to check it out this time. When I got there, I saw Mike and Ashley just ahead of me in line. Ashley got a t-shirt and mike got a coupon for something. I got a T-shirt as well, a red Highlight Factory shirt. That wheel’s the best kept secret in Atlanta.

We got there a little after tip-off and the Hawks were already up 8-0. The Bobcats cut it to 1 by the end of the 1st quarter, but the Hawks dominated the 2nd. Joe Johnson was scoring 3s all over Morrison. He got a steal off of him too. At one point Josh Smith dunked on him. It was pretty fun to watch. He didn’t cry though. The Hawks continued to dominate in the 3rd, and I was thinking about writing how last year the Hawks would go down to the wire against cellar dwellers, but now the were at least taking care of business. Well, thing turned ugly in the 4th. The Bobcats cut a 20 point deficit down to 3 with about 3 min. left. To their credit, THe Hawks slammed the door on the comeback and took control. They ended up winning by around 10.

Mike and I collaborated on a call…Matt Freije is the Albino Monk from The Da Vinci Code.

Saturday afternoon, I pried Mike away from his yardwork long enough to convince him to go up to Athens with me for the Georgia Tech/Georgia game. We left Atlanta around 11, stopping at a Starbucks along the way, and we rolled into Athens around 1. The trip up there was mainly spent talking about our time at Georgia, and how neither of us really had an amazing time up there. This was probably related to neither of us being in a fraternity, which is a big thing in Athens. We also agreed that if we were to return to Athens now and enroll, we’d be getting mad chicks.

Last year we went to Athens and were stunned to discover that Guthrie’s, a bastion of chicken fingers with a special dipping sauce reputed to clean pennies, had burned down. We found a parking spot on Atlanta Highway, the main road that leads directly into downtown, and start hiking over to Guthries. We arrived to find that a sparkling new restaurant called Raising Cane’s. Everything about the place was different from Guthries, but the weird thing is that the food was exactly the same as Guthries.

As we walked to the stadium, a convertible drove by with people in the back throwing out t-shirts advertising a condo complex. An asian girl asked Mike, “You want shut?” Mike said sure, and she threw us both shirts. Moments later, in a move that would have made Todd shudder, we left our free shirts behind because we didn’t want to carry them around all day.

From there we visited the Tate Student Center, where Mike and I spent most of our time at UGA (specifically in the game room). Mike was hoping they’d still have the Mortal Combat machine that he presumed would still have his high scores, but it was gone.

We got into the stadium half an hour early and spent some time making calls, then found our seats, in the Eaast endzone upper deck, pretty high up, which were directly in the bright sunlight. I was prepared, with a hat and shades, but Mike started frying up pretty quickly. He ended up leaning back in the shade of my head until the sun went down, around halftime.

As for the game, the first half wasn’t very exciting. There was no scoring in the first quarter, and a Tech FG in the second quarter gave them an early lead. Georgia had a field goal to tie, but it was blocked. It’s always really different to watch games in person as opposed to on TV, because without the stats readily available, you rely more on your feel for the game, and it seemed like neither team really knew what to do; I had no idea Reggie Ball was playing as bad as he was until I checked the stats on my Sidekick at the half.
The weirdest play of the game, and probably UGA’s season, came in the third quarter. Georgia Tech had the ball on their own half, driving away from us. Ball ran up the middle and a buzz went through the crowd, with people screaming “Fumble!” The two line judges ran in like they were going to start pulling guys off the pile, and then all of a sudden UGA linebacker Tony Taylor came running out of the pile with the ball and dove into the endzone. Chan ran onto the field all upset, but the play stood.

(Aside: And Taylor got a 15 yard penalty for diving into the end zone, which seems stupid. They even showed a montage on the scoreboard before the game of UGA guys diving into the end zone. Let the kids play!)

Tech got a field goal late in the third quarter, then drove down for a touchdown from Tashard Choice (and missed two point conversion) to make it 12-7 with about 9 minutes left. Tech mainly ran it down UGA’s throat on this drive, and I don’t understand why they didn’t this more often during the game.
UGA got it back and put together a perfect drive, taking 7 minutes and 12 plays to go 64 yards for a TD. Stafford was great on that drive, completing short passes, and Mo Massaquoi finally got rid of the dropsies and made huge back to back catches, one of the TD and the next for the 2-pt conversion.

With UGA up 15-12, the kickoff pinned GT on their 18 with 1:36 to go, and we knew there was no way Reggie was getting them in field goal range. As Tech took the field, the UGA fans were all chanting, “Reg-gie! Reg-gie!”

So Mike and I started booking it out of there. We were just outside the stadium gates when we heard a roar go up, and we knew it meant that Reggie had given another game to the Dawgs. After race-walking through the hills of Athens, we got the car pretty quickly and were on the road fast. After dropping Mike off at home, I was back at Isabel’s mom’s house by 8:35 p.m.

I know Reggie will take the bulk of the blame, and he probably should, but there were some weird plays called throughout by Tech. I didn’t see much of him this season, but Ball seems to have a tendency to hold on to the ball too long on pass plays, so why didn’t they call more quick screens? On that play in the end zone where Ball was late throwing the slant to Calvin, why didn’t they just run four straight fades? Remember the play where Reggie overthrew Calvin on a bomb down the sideline and into the end zone? Why did they run a reverse to Calvin on the very next play? Shouldn’t they have given Calvin a play to catch his breath?

Finally, after a long night, Mike and I went ass-to-mouth on each other to celebrate the Dawgs win.

I can’t believe Scott Brosius even makes the ballot. Every year, it seems one joker puts someone like him on the ballot. If you had a vote, who would you select and why.HOF Voters can select up to 15 players, so we’ll limit it to that.
Players on 2007 ballot:
• Harold Baines
• Albert Belle
• Dante Bichette
• Bert Blyleven
• Bobby Bonilla
• Scott Brosius
• Jay Buhner
• Ken Caminiti
• Jose Canseco
• Dave Concepcion
• Eric Davis
• Andre Dawson
• Tony Fernandez
• Steve Garvey
• Rich Gossage
• Tony Gwynn
• Orel Hershiser
• Tommy John
• Wally Joyner
• Don Mattingly
• Mark McGwire
• Jack Morris
• Dale Murphy
• Paul O’Neill
• Dave Parker
• Jim Rice
• Cal Ripken Jr.
• Bret Saberhagen
• Lee Smith
• Alan Trammell
• Devon White
• Bobby Witt

Lang’s going to have a better experience to write up about this one, but I thought i’d start the thread and throw in my 2 cents:

Ismail and I had the season tickets for the evening. On the spin, I won a free Coke. No real sightings of Stars, lookalikes or people of the past to report.

The Hawks won 97-93. Josh Smith finally cames to terms with his limitations and played the way we needed him to; if we’re going to be any good, we need him on the defensive end of the floor doing his thing. He had 11 pts, 11 rebs, 5 assists and 4 blks. The best play of the game is when he pinned Bosh’s layup to the glass, then he ran up court on the break, got the pass, dunked, got fouled and made his free throw-all in a five second period. This typified his game and what we need out of him to win.

JJ had 27 but continues to be woeful from the line; the Hawks were 13-21 from the stripe and this is the main reason the score remained close.

T. Lue had 16 pts hit a lot of big shots and continues to have a career year going. Zaza had a quiet 18 and 7 to help the Hawks down low.

Raptors: The Spanish PF Garbajosa went off in the first quarter and had maybe 11 pts in that time. He finished with 15 pts and 12 rebs. This guy has a great touch.

Andrea Bargnani, the #1 pick, got a lot of PT and also had a great shooting touch. However, he’s weak and easy to push around. He’ll need to toughen up if he’s going to be a legit NBAer.

TJ Ford was the best player on the floor for the Raptors. He finished with 25pts, 12 assists and 8 rebs (two rebs short of a triple-double). This guy is the quickest player i’ve seen in years. He was blowing by the Hawks every time he took it up the floor in transition. That was a good move to pick him up in exchange for “Powder”, despite the risk of him coming off an injury year.

Finally, i’ve seen Chris Bosh play live twice now in the NBA and i’m just not impressed. I wasn’t that impressed with him at Tech; I saw glimmers of greatness, but not much consistency. Remember, the year that he played we didn’t make the NCAAs and I think we had a losing record. I realize that he’s got a decent touch and soft hands, but the way people are fawning over him doesn’t make sense to me. He finished with 11pts, 7 rebs and 3 blks against a weak interior defensive team like the Hawks. To me, he’s kind of a Shareef player- he’ll get you numbers, but not the win.

I’ve seen two OT losses in the last week and both losses came down to poor coaching, wide-open missed shots and Josh Smith playing like a total idiot.

Al and I went to the game and spun the wheel before heading to the seats. I got the Booby Prize for the First Time: Enter to Win in some Drawing. Al, on the other hand, scored the best prize up there: two tickets to the Thrashers game, a $110 value.

The Hawks played a horrible first half and only scored 12 pts in the first half and 20 in the 2nd. Luckily, the Heat, minus Shaq, weren’t much better and only had a 10 pt lead at the half. In the 3rd Quarter, the Hawks turned it up and got back into the game with a lot of transition buckets and good ball movement.

The 4th Quarter and OT would prove to be the most frustrating as the Hawks continued to heave up 3pt shots. They would end up 3 for 23 from 3 pt Range for the night (JJ 1-6, Josh Smith 0-4). Basically, no one could find their shot. The Heat were equally bad and missed several wide-open looks. Included in their poor shooting were three wide-open looks for Antoine Walker in the last minute of the game to win it for the Heat; he missed all three and didn’t get off the bench for the OT. We couldn’t rebound the damned ball all game and gave them the ball for the entire last minute of the game; luckily for us, Walker can’t shoot anymore.

The Hawks shot 63% from the Free Throw line. Joe Johnson missed 6 free throws, including twice missing both ends within the last few minutes of the 4th and in OT. Conversely, D-Wade hit 6 FTs in OT. If JJ is going to be a true star and lead the Hawks to respectability, he’s gotta do the little things like hit FTs in the clutch.

The continued bullshit play of Josh Smith continued for the third game in a row. He took four 3s, missing all of them. He forced two fast break layups instead of pulling it out when they had the lead late in the 4th quarter. Worst of all, he stopped playing good defense in OT and allowed for his man to score 3-4 times.

Woodson deserves blame for Josh taking those threes too. Earlier in the week, he called Smith out for shooting too many threes, yet, he still has him out there in the corner for the dish-out when JJ drove to the hole. If you don’t want him to shoot, don’t run the play that way. If Josh is supposed to cut, then pull him out for not making the move. However, don’t tell him not to shoot and then leave him out there.

Overall, D-Wade (37 pts, 7 Rebs, 9 Asts) did us in. We seem to have a real problem defending the premier guards. In all of our losses, we’ve been hurt down the stretch by Iverson, Ray Allen, Redd and now D-Wade. We’ve got to get some better defending from our guards.

When Jason Williams hits two threes down the stretch to help seal the win, you know we’re in trouble. In the end, the Hawks lost by 5 points and we left the game feeling upset about what we’d just witnessed. This game was frustrating on so many levels that it was hard to digest. It took me two days to settle my thoughts enough to even write this entry.

This is what i’ve come up with after thinking about the game:

1. Josh Smith has got to be reined in.

2. Woodson needs to rein Smith in. He also needs to have the team work on playing better down the stretch. We’ve lost 3 games in the last week, all in the final minutes. We did too much of that last year and you would’ve thought that we’d be able to finally turn the corner this season.

3. We need better rebounding. We were getting used on both ends of the court and had almost no offensive rebounds. Shelden picked up 15 Rebounds vs. Milwaukee, but got very little playing time vs. Miami. If you really drafted him to rebound, then use him because we couldn’t do anything on the boards.

4. We’ve got to start hitting our shots; JJ has been missing some key shots lately and is not quite there yet to lead us to the next level. I think that he can be, but he’s got to improve his mental toughness.

This is going to be a long year if we have to suffer through these types of games all season.

For once this season, Tech puts a team away like it’s supposed to do.

I spoke with Dave on Friday night and he still had four tickets up for grabs, so I decided to take two for Ismail and myself since no one was going to use them otherwise and the game wasn’t on TV. I met up with Steve and Christina at the tailgate and we made our way to Bobby Dodd. We still had two extras, so we gave them away to a family; I’m hoping that this will bring us good Karma when it comes to getting cheap seats at the ACC Championship Game in Jacksonville in two weeks.

The game started off horribly as Reggie immediately threw an interception. However, all Duke could do is miss a field goal from 20 yards. From that point on, Tech dominated the rest of the half. Choice had 3-4 major runs on the next drive to put the Jackets ahead and they never looked back. Ball played well the rest of the half and had 3 TDs, including his 13th to Calvin. Halftime score of 28-7. While the first Quarter went by in 35 minutes, for some reason the 2nd Quarter took 1 hour. We were pretty miserable at halftime and the time seemed to be crawling along.

None of the starters played in the 2nd Half. Taylor Bennett, most likely Ball’s replacement for next season, looked sharp in the 3rd Quarter and had two TD passes to a Redshirt Freshman named Smith; i’d never seen this receiver before, but he seemed to have great hands.

With the score 42-14 after 3 Quarters, we decided that we’d had enough. We missed one TD from each team as the final score ended up as 49-21. Not an exciting game by any stretch of the imagination, but it was nice to see Tech actually beat up on an opponent it’s supposed to beat up on.

Jesus Shuttlesworth, pretty much remaining low-key through 3 quarters, proceeded to put on a show in the 4th Quarter and in OT, nailing the Hawks to the Crucifix 113-112. Included in his Crusade was a nasty drive to the Promised Land with two seconds left, scoring the winning bucket and sending Hawks fans to the 7th Circle of Hell for all Eternity.

Josh Smith was god-awful, he took and missed way too many outside shots in the 4th Quarter. Overall, he was 3-10 from the 3-pt line. Hey Josh, there’s a reason you’re wide open every time, it’s because you have no shot. Although he finally came to life a little bit in the OT with two straight threes, he missed a shot in the last minute that would’ve given the Hawks the lead.

Another thing that really killed the Hawks is that they shot 21 of 33 from the FT line. That’s horrible for a college team, much less an NBA squad.

JJ looked good with 28 pts and 10 rebs. Zaza impressed with 21 points. Childress played a solid game and had 17 pts; he continues to play with his limits and be a solid contributor on both ends of the court.

Janet, Ismail and I were the ones that ended up going to the game this night. The Wheel didn’t give me what I wanted- instead of a free drink, I ended up with a Hawks Coozie. Janet took Ismail to shoot the hockey pucks, so she didn’t get a spin in. The giveaway that night were Magnetic Schedules, so I snagged five or six for the other members of the Mofo.

Stars in attendance included Rudi (Keisha Knight-Pulliam from the Cosby Show) and Lil’Jon.

The biggest All-Star that I saw that night was famous in our circles- none other than Nantambu Willingham, former victory cigar at UConn and North Fulton HS legend. He had a mohawk, a dress shirt and a dress coat on; quite a combo. I guess he must’ve been there to see his old teammate Ray Allen play. I was going to say hello, but I wasn’t sure if he’d remember me so I decided against it.

Not much else to report, except that it would’ve nice to see the Hawks win with there being such a large crowd on hand (19309 announced, more like 17 K in reality) for the TI concert after the game. We didn’t stay for the concert as I personally can’t stand his music.

Dave, Steve, Ismail, Quin, The Minstrel and I attended the Tech season opener last Friday vs. Elon. The Jackets looked strong in their opener and had balanced scoring from many of the players. Thaddeus looked strong in his Regular Season Opener, as did Javaris. In the 2nd Half, Javaris looked especially good and looked very comfortable handling the ball. Jeremis had a strong game and had some nice blocks and other solid defensive plays. Even Ra’Sean contributed defensively-maybe the benching has lit a fire under his ass.

Overall, it was a comfortable victory for the Jackets and nothing I saw tonight made me re-assess my previous positive feelings from the Morehouse exhibition the week before. I think this team has the potential to do something this season and I don’t think that the lack of experience will haunt them as much as it did some of the other inexperienced, but talented Tech teams of the past.

I didn’t tell any of you ladies, but I was in Atlanta for about 36 hours earlier this week for work. I didn’t even have a chance to go by my parent’s house. One of the big shoe companies was unveiling a shoe that will come out in a few months, so they flew about 20 magazine writers and editors into Atlanta to show us the shoe. I got in late Monday night. They put us up at that new hotel The Twelve at Atlantic Station, which was really nice. My room was huge, with a full kitchen and living room and a separate bedroom — it might have been bigger than my apartment in NYC. Two flatscreens in the room, too, and a cool balcony over 17th St.

Tuesday morning we were up early and in a meeting all day, and then they took us to the Hawks/Bucks game Tuesday night and had us in a luxury box. (Not sure which one of you guys had the tickets, and I couldn’t see your seats because we were directly underneath your seats.) Hawks started slow and didn’t play well at all. They couldn’t get Joe Johnson the ball, Josh Smith was shooting bricks. Even Zaza wasn’t able to do his thing of missing all those low-post shots and getting his own rebounds.

They made a run in the third quarter, led by Tar Tar Links. Josh Childress also made a lot of nice drives to the rim and had an amazing dunk over Ruben Patterson. They finally got Joe Johnson involved, and had a 10 point lead with 8 minutes left, and then everything fell apart. The Bucks started making shots, the Hawks got cold, and the Bucks got some key buckets from a rookie from Turkey who even I know nothing about, and the Bucks got the win by two points.

I couldn’t believe some of the terrible coaching decisions that were going on throughout the game by both coaches. For instance, there were three glaring mistakes in the last four seconds.

1) The Bucks had a free throw to make it a 2 point lead with 4 seconds left. Woodson removed the 6-10 Shelden and put in the 6-1 Salim Stoudemire. I’m not sure why you wouldn’t leave your tall guys in when you might desperately need a rebound, but Woody took him out. Couldn’t they at least put in Frieje, who’s tall and can shoot?

2) The Turkish kid hit the free throw, but the Hawks were out of timeouts (nice work, Woody), so they had to take the ball out of bounds under the basket and go the length of the floor.

3) The Hawks threw it in to Joe Johnson, who was running toward the inbounds passer and away from the Hawks’ basket. And Terry Stotts yelled for the Bucks to foul him because they had a foul to give. So instead of having Joe catch the ball and somehow turn around and go thte legth of the floor in 4 seconds, the Bucks fouled, stopped the clock with 3.6 seconds left and let the Hawks take the ball out of bounds near midcourt on the sideline. (Turned out not to matter because Joe got stripped by Ruben Patterson as the clock ran out.)

It was good to see Salim get playing time, but it’s amazing to me how he still doesn’t know the plays they run. Twice he came down and set up on the court and had everyone else on the team motioning for him to go somewhere else. Twice! And he’s supposed to be a point guard.

And a special paragraph for Shelden: When he concentrates on rebounding he’s great — he finished with 15 boards — but he’s completely inept on offense. Once he caught the ball all alone under the rim and managed to get called for a walk. More than once he caught the ball and had no idea what to do with it, and a few times he didn’t seem to understand the concept of swining the ball about to find the open guy. Really frustrating to watch.

After the game I went down to Woodson’s press conference, and it was funny because he was all ticked off about the loss. Sekou asked (delicately) how he felt about Shelden’s game, particularly his offensive contributions, and Woody said, “Shit, if I can 15 rebounds a night from Shelden I’ll be thrilled.” I almost asked how he felt about his four turnovers, but I let it go.

In the locker room, the Hawks all seemed pretty pissed off about the loss. Joe Johnson sat in his locker, silent, for about five minutes before taking a shower. I told Lorenzen Wright I enjoy seeing him play because he always seems to foul someone hard, and he smiled and said, “Yeah, you’re like, here he comes to foul the shit out of somebody!” He seems to enjoy the enforcer role.

Josh Smith was upset because he finished 1-for-12 and fouled out, but we spoke for a few minutes about the PlayStation3 and how bad this year’s NBA Live is.

My favorite person on the Hawks is probably Josh Childress, because he’s very, very cool, and he and I email back and forth on our Sidekicks a few times a week. I told Josh that I thought he needed a haircut. He asked why, and I told him it was because I turned on a game last week and thought Billy Knight was out there playing. Royal Ivey cracked up at that line. I was proud of that joke because I thought of it a week ago and have been waiting to use it since then.

The most encouraging thing I saw all night was after Joe Johnson got dressed and was about to leave, he made a lap around the locker room and gave each player a pound and told each player, “Way to play hard and get back in the game.” It was a little thing, a move that if any of us had done after a golf round would have seemed ridiculous and silly, but Joe was really serious about it and all the players seemed to appreciate it. It was the kind of thing I guess team leaders do, and the kind of leadership the Hawks have sorely needed for a few years now. I feel pretty good about the Hawks being in JJ’s hands for the next decade.

Wednesday morning we woke up and I had a flight out of Atlanta at 2, so I stopped by Mario’s for a quick haircut. He told me that the mall he’s in has told him that they’re going to make him sign a new lease at the end of December and they want to triple his rent, so he’s probably going to have to move. He said his store’s rent right now is $475 a month (which seems really cheap considering he’s in Buckhead) and that they want it to be about $1500 per month. He said they have offered him a smaller space in that hallway in the corner of the mall for a little more than he pays now, but he’s not sure what to do. He kept rambling about making taking a job at CVS, and how he doesn’t make much more now than the people who work at CVS. He did admit that enjoys cutting hair and he’s good at it.

He said that shop he’s in now has been a barber shop since 1957. I suggested I could write an article about his quandry for the AJC or Creative Loafing, maybe something about progress pushing out the little guy, but he didn’t want that to backfire and get his landlord mad at him.

I told him if he moves to that corner store he should request a new sign, and he said he would. He also said he thought he might print up flyers and then ride around on his bicycle and distribute them. He also said he might take a job cutting hair at some other place up Roswell Road that I’ve never heard of.

Anyway, he’s there through December at least. I got his email addresses (he gave me three different addresses) so that if he moves we can find out what he’s up to.
Suffice to say, this could have disastrous results for all of us.

I’m a little late posting, but how ’bout the Hawks winning in overtime against Cleveland the other night? T. Lue made some sweet shots down the stretch, especially the one over LeBron (before LeBron walked off the court). My favorite part was when Lue started yelling at the Cavs (I think that’s who he was yelling at) after making the shot over LeBron.
On a side note, how many times can they show Phoenix or Cleveland on TV? Every time I turn on ESPN or TNT, it’s one or the other. At least they’re pretty exciting to watch.