Steve had today’s tickets and called with a last minute invitation, so I decided to go. Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision. Quite simply- the game sucked. Just like the Celtics road game on Friday, the Hawks were outplayed and out-hustled on the boards (gave up 18 offensive boards) and never really threatened to seriously win the game. The Hawks lack of interior defense made Haywood (13p, 12r), Jamison (23p, 15r) and Butler (24p, 7r,6a) look like perennial All-Stars. You’d think that if you held Arenas to ten pts. going into the 4th, you’d be in good shape, but the Hawks were down by 13 at that point. They made a slight run midway through the 4th to cut the lead to five, but didn’t look like they would actually have anything left down the stretch (which they didn’t), losing 101-90.

The one lone bright spot was Marvin (20p, 12r)- he hit all of his open looks, had double-digit rebounds and even played some credible physical defense for once.

Joe (8-24 from the field) and J-Smith looked subpar. Smith in particular made some of his usual mistakes late in the game, mishandling the ball, forcing ill-advised passes and making poor shot selections when prudence was needed. Law played very little and most of the PG responsibilities inexplicably went to T-Lue. With about 5 minutes left in the game, I remember looking at the Stats board and seeing that Lue had ONE assist. Pathetic.

Horford had a solid game with 9 pts and 10 rebounds. He’s done well this season on the boards as he’s averaging 9.3 RPG so far. However, he doesn’t really seem to be involved too much in the offensive scheme and is getting most of his buckets underneath from dump passes.

Shelden played a total of 38 seconds, which is a little hard to understand since he’s actually had some solid games this season defensively and the Hawks needed to try something different defensively in the paint.  

The Spin: There was absolutely nothing of value on the Wheel- no vouchers, no drink tickets, only cheap promo items. I’ve noticed that the Spirit really seem to be cost-cutting this year- the promotions nights suck (No Statues or Bobbles), no thundersticks, cheaper vouchers (when and if they have them) and Steve noticed that there’s no longer a live in-game band. The lawsuit must really be taking its toll.