The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with Mike Bibby a free agent and third-year forward and former lottery pick Marvin Williams seemingly without a role.
Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins, the team's vice president of basketball, said the Hawks need two key components to challenge, Boston, Orlando and Cleveland for Eastern Conference supremacy.
The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after Atlanta won Game 5 over Miami 106-91 to go up 3-2 in the series.
How can the Heat be anything other than the worst team remaining when they came into the playoffs as an underdog and, now, Dwyane Wade is not 100 percent? Hey, it's just another way of saying that coach Erik Spoelstra is doing a great coaching job.
Miami was down 23 points at halftime, and the only reason to watch the remaining 24 was to find out who was going to commit the next hard foul and who was going to be on the receiving end of it.
Atlanta 106, Miami 91: Recap | Box Score Atlanta Leads Series 3-2 | Next Game: Friday @ Miami
It hasn't been a great week for Atlanta sports fans. The dreams of the Falcons were ended by the now-NFC-Championship-Game-bound Cardinals, then the Hawks started to slide, culminating in Friday night's massacre against Orlando. In that game, Al Horford wound up a little banged up, and scheduled an MRI.
Well, it turns out that the MRI revealed a bone bruise on the knee, holding out Horford today against Philadelphia (a game that the Hawks promptly proceeded to lose, their third in a row). Now word has come out that Horford will miss up to four weeks games with the injury. That's quite a significant amount of time for a team in a pretty tough decision, with Orlando streaking off into vapor trails and the Heat hanging tight, not to mention the fact that the Bobcats might actually be getting their stuff together.
The Hawks' Marvin Williams injured his left thumb in the first half of last night's win over the Bobcats. It doesn't appear to be too serious -- head coach Mike Woodson afterward said "nothing's broken" and Williams himself said he could "bend it but not extend it," so all signs point to him being just fine.
The bright side is that the team played the second half without him, and apparently looked good while doing so. They were able to go with a bigger lineup of Zaza Pachulia at center, Al Horford at the four, and Josh Smith on the wing, which instantly paid dividends on the boards and allowed the team to go from seven down at the half to up five at one point in the third.
The reason that this is encouraging news for the Hawks, at least in the short term, is that the team is now forced to pIay without Williams, which will help them prepare for their season opener against Orlando without him. I had forgotten, but yes, Williams is indeed suspended for the first game of the regular season, thanks to this flagrant (but not homicidal as the announcers would lead you to believe) takedown of Rajon Rondo during last season's playoffs.
Zaza Pachulia is the only current NBA player from Georgia, the central Asian republic currently at war with Russia. (Jake Tsakalidis, Vladimir Stepania and Nikoloz Tskitishvili make up the complete historical NBA Georgian contingent.) Via Ball Don't Lie, Micah Hart of the Hawks BasketBlog reports Pachulia has twice been on CNN this week pleading for an end to fighting.
Obviously, Pachulia is worried about his friends and family back home.
"Because of my age," says Pachulia, "A lot of my friends are still serving in the military. I have been able to get in contact with some of them, but others I have no idea. It's scary - I just want the fighting to end. Innocent people are being killed or losing their homes, and that just can't continue." [...]
"I am not trying to talk about who is wrong and who is right," he said. "The most important thing to me is that there be peace, and that the people of Georgia not have to live in fear for their lives or their homes."
This sort of unfortunate war-basketball cross-pollination happened repeatedly in the 1990s, as parts of the former Yugoslavia played unwilling host to devastating ethnic war between Serbs and Bosnians just as the European (and Slavic, more specifically) explosion in the NBA took hold.
As for this war, there are competing reports with regard to whether Russia has pulled out of Georgia. The Georgian men's national team (with Pachulia) had been scheduled to play qualifiers for FIBA Europe 2009 soon, but Zaza says that's second fiddle right now. Obviously.
For the second straight playoff season, Robert Horry finds himself in the middle of a "dirty/not dirty" play controversy. After setting a back pick for David West that knocked the Hornets' star from the game, everyone is going to the video of last year's hit on Steve Nash and saying something to the effect of, "look, he did it again!" First the clip of the play on West (at the 1:29 mark), then the discussion.
I'm the last person in the world that you would expect to come to the defense of the Spurs' edition of Robert Horry, but I'm going to do exactly that -- at least a little bit.
The Atlanta Hawks sure are fun aren't they? And popular, too! Atlanta does love it's Hawks. And the Hawks love them right back. Witness Zaza Pachulia's post game "speech" whereby he yells things about Game 7. You really have to love this guy, even though if I were his teammates, I'd be fairly sick of his armpit snare/hugs.
As much as I absolutely love the Hawks, this team is still like the 2001 Carolina Hurricanes in terms of fan behavior.
In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Celtics-Hawks game tonight.
1. If The Hornets Are Thin, The Hawks Are Transparent: Game 5 Celtics bench points: 35. Game 5 Hawks bench points: 14. Yikes. Zaza Pachulia followed up the tough guy from Game 4 by scoring 2 points in ten minutes with no rebounds. Josh Childress, dunk machine? 5 points in 26 minutes on 2 of 8 shooting, and did I mention he had 4 of his shots blocked? When the team with the amazing starting lineup crushes you with their bench? That's a bad sign, kids. The only way the Hawks can keep up with this team is if they get some level of production off their bench.
2. It's Over When the Big Ticket Says It's Over:Kevin Garnett has pretty much decided he's had enough with the Hawks' fun and games. In the last two games he's scored 40 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocks. In Game 5 he was a monster, devouring the Hawks with the kind of lethal intensity we anticipated going into the postseason. The problem with Garnett is that there's really no way to match up with him. You can put Al Horford on him, but Horford's a rookie and Garnett's range is too good. You can put the headbutter on him, but it's only going to make him mad. The Hawks need to let Garnett get his and focus on auxiliary support.
In another of our continuing series, five things to keep an eye out for tonight in the Hawks-Celtics game tonight.
1. In Which Joe Johnson Tries To Re-Ignite: Joe Johnson was the story in Game 4, scoring 20 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Hawks to a series tie. For a team that prided itself on being the best defensive team in the league, Atlanta's ISO for Johnson shredded the Celtics time and time again. The key tonight will be to see how the Celtics respond defensively. Gambling with Rajon Rondo on Johnson might not be a bad idea, given Rondo's physical nature and the fact that Mike Bibby has slowly devolved into goo. The size differential is alarming, but Rondo's freakish athleticism could be the neutralizer and besides, it's not like Johnson was going to the post game in Game 4, anyway.
2. And Then Garnett Killed Everyone And The Villagers Rejoiced And Screamed "Go Sawx!": Kevin Garnett has had leadership, manhood, and toughness have been called into question after getting punked by ... wait for it ... Zaza Pachulia. After Garnett used a little bit of his toughness on Pachulia, Pachulia decided to headbutt the Defensive Player of the Year to show he's not afraid of him. Garnett, instead of annihilating Pachulia, for whatever reason, be it smarts or a lack of fortitude, chose to back away, scream, and accidentally shove a referee. Let this be a lesson, kids. Accidentally shoving referees and headbutting superstars is fine, but standing up and walking three feet off the bench is not. Anyway, Garnett is likely to come out roaring, and he needs to, as this team is in desperate need of leadership, and won't be finding it from its coach. I expect Garnett to get ridiculously hot tonight.
Has David Stern gone soft? Did all the abuse levied at Secaucus following last year's Suns-Spurs series matter? Did someone decide potentially losing Boston this early in the postseason would destroy any hopes for a compelling NBA Finals? Something's funky, because the league has announced no players involved in the Boston-Atlanta scuffle Monday night -- including those who committed the formerly cardinal sin of leaving the bench -- will be suspended.
If you'll remember, both Kendrick Perkins and Marvin Williams stepped onto the court during the Zaza Pachulia-Kevin Garnett dance-off. Marvin was 70 feet away, and walked out almost perpendicular to the sideline, seemingly to get a better look. Perk didn't quite have malice in his eyes, but he was certainly walking toward the action. Perkins engaged in activity no different than the activities which stuck Phoenix in a Game 5 match with the Spurs without Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. (Garnett also escaped punishment; some thought he might be in line for a suspension based on a possible push of a referee.)
It's a good thing no one lost any players. The Hawks don't need an advantage to compete, obviously. It would have been a good thing last year if the league took no disciplinary action. But the inconsistency from one season to the next clouds the rule, bolstering future confusion and adding unneeded fuel to tongue-in-cheek conspiracy theories.
The Atlanta Hawks are considered one of the NBA's rising teams, as evidenced by consecutive playoff appearances for the first time in 10 years. The Hawks, however, were easily swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who spent four games exposing Atlanta's numerous flaws and weaknesses. The Hawks are approaching a critical time for their franchise, with Mike Bibby a free agent and third-year forward and former lottery pick Marvin Williams seemingly without a role.
The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after 
It hasn't been a great week for Atlanta sports fans. The dreams of the Falcons were ended by the now-NFC-Championship-Game-bound Cardinals, then the Hawks started to slide, culminating in Friday night's 
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