Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Grades from the bottom of a snowdrift:
Artest ( A- ) -- Got off to a quiet start, but then exploded in the second quarter and completely carried us with a 14pt outburst from outside and in. And our +/- with Ron remains almost scary. Like a drug or something. The Hawks two biggest runs both took place as soon as Ron went to the bench in the late first and late third. Such versatility -- guarded four positions for us tonight. Everybody from Harrington to Johnson. And after being switched off onto Joe Johnson in the second half it wasn't even a competition. Johnson is a good player. Artest is a GREAT defender. Does continue to throw up some random shots at times. But efficiency can be highly overrated when the alternative is a guy who forces the action and causes as much havoc as Ron does. Credited with 6 steals, and probably knocked away another 4 or 5 balls as well. Not a perfect game or anything, but its funny having a player of this caliber show back up in town. He is just tangibly better than everybody else we have, and all but the very best the opposition has. I am completely unworried every night about anybody getting the better of him. Be some interesting tests with Kobe and LeBron eventually. But early returns say we've got ourselves a GREAT player. A guy who in his own way may turn out to be nearly as dominant as Webb was in his prime. If he can just hold it together.
Thomas ( B+ ) -- good solid active game for Kenny. The Hawks just had nobody on the inside tonight, and for the most part Kenny could just go where he wanted and do whatever he felt like. And for the most part he played within himself. Not many forces, avoided the dumb mental mistakes. And there is nobody on Atlanta to take advanatge of him defensively. End result was a very solid 17pt 10reb game where he did much to help and little to hurt us. Could have been an A-, but dropped it a tid for setting and opponent, not wanting to hand out too many As for beating an inferior opponent on our home floor.
Miller ( B ) -- one interesting development early in this one was the return of the Brad-centric Princetonesque offense. He was controlling action from out on top. But things began to slip badly in the second quarter when the nifty passes starting turning into not so nifty turnovers and the decisionmaking was shaky. Picked up the boardwork and actually blocked out on the glass in the third, even if it was only Zaza Pachulia. Had a shorter night than the other starters, and the thumb looked like it might be bothering him at times. This one started out strong, got shaky, and finished solid.
Martin ( B+ ) -- Got off to a slow start and had an unfortunate double brain fart at the end of the first half, first carelessly turning the ball over on what should have been our final possession to end the half, and then mysteriously deciding to come down on the other end and just grab his guy rather than play defense, allowing the Hawks to get a pair of FTs and close it to within 8. However the only shot he hit in the first half was a nice one -- a turnaround on the baseline with his momentum heading away from the hoop. Tough shot to make. And came out in the third on a bit of a run to restore a little of his Arco luster. Best thing that he showed again tonight was that little one handed floating stop and pop pullup. Like so much else with his game, its practically brand new, but its quite good given the elevation he gets. If you watch his outside shooting, it can be taken away -- he still needs space and to have his feet firmly set to hit with any consistency. But that pullup -- that's a real pro shot that's going to net him a lot of points in his NBA career. Not his best game and a middling first half. But a big third and another 20pt night at Arco.
Bibby ( C+ ) -- out there and steadier than in Phoenix, but you would have barely noticed him. Kind of just solidly efficient, but definitely working in the shadows and didn't have much to do with this outcome. Better obviously, and encouraging just in that he was able to make mild contributions in efficient fashion rather than being either great or horrible. But nonetheless we were basically working around Mike's lack of production tonight. Will need more from him as we hit the road.
Garcia ( B ) -- quiet first half stint offensively, and got himself sent to the bench after forcing a one on one move and miss. But did grab a bunch of defense boards, albeit most of them uncontested. Did eventually score most of his points in garbagetime, but never got hot from the field and sdtruggled to a 2-7 night. A real positive is that he continues to get work at the backup PG, and may not be that far from solving that problem for us, for this year at least. Rick has gained a lot of confidence in that unit in a short time, and may have seen the error of his Hart ways. Of course the key remains to have Artest, or maybe Miller, on the floor at the same time to actually run the offense -- Cisco just needs to get it up the floor.
Reef ( A- ) -- started off quiet offensively, but was actually having one of his best rebounding games of the season. Then went on a scoring run in the early 4th to help us maintain the commanding lead and finished with a very nice 10pt 8reb game. Not sure whether it was getting back at his old team, making a pitch for his starting spot, or just the weakness of the Atlanta frontline. But whatever it was, this is the sort of rounded game from Reef which can really help us.
Skinner ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Hart ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Sampson ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Price ( INC ) -- garbagetime, made a couple of good defensive plays in his minutes
Adelman ( A- ) -- Ahh...the Hawks. Like a breath of fresh air for every struggling team in the league for a decade now. No matter who you are, no matter how bad things are going, the Hawks will always make you feel good about yourselves and glad you're not them. Tonight they hung close for about a half. Or rather we let them hang close by making a pile of braindead turnovers before Rick's halftime speech/adjustments really seemed to do the job (in particular the move to sic Artest on Johnson, and I do not use the word "sic" by accident). But you can just see that they are a young team with an inferior goto guy and incapable of squeezing anybody on defense for even short spurts. No point guard to set the tempo. No big man to shut down the interior. Talent, but directionless and flavorless talent. In response tonight Rick REALLY tightened the rotation. It was effectively 7 men, and then the bench cleared for a few minutes of garbagetime. But Reef was the only big man backup, an Garcia the only little man backup as we utilized those players' versatility and did not have to worry about either a great PG or great C taking advantage of our out of position guys. Atlanta has neither. The 7 man rotation could also be a very good thing for Cisco no matter what we do with Bonzi. Even if Bonzi returns, Cisco may now be able to get a lot of his minutes as a backup to Mike. If Bonzi does not return, Cisco is positioning himself as a one man 1/2/3/ backup for all three of the Bibby/Martin.Artest trio. Also means we may be able to focus on a shotblocker at the trading deadline, and just call Garcia/Artest the backup PG the rest of the year. And so anyway, very short rotation that produced a blowout as we got good very good games from just about everybody. And this is Rick's preferred short rotation pattern, and that of many top coaches really. Pick your best 8 and let them play. And it really helps if you have some versatile benchers. One question I do have to ask on an otherwise successful night, was...Rick? What the hell is Ron Artest doing on the floor in this one with 3 minutes to go in the game?
Artest ( A- ) -- Got off to a quiet start, but then exploded in the second quarter and completely carried us with a 14pt outburst from outside and in. And our +/- with Ron remains almost scary. Like a drug or something. The Hawks two biggest runs both took place as soon as Ron went to the bench in the late first and late third. Such versatility -- guarded four positions for us tonight. Everybody from Harrington to Johnson. And after being switched off onto Joe Johnson in the second half it wasn't even a competition. Johnson is a good player. Artest is a GREAT defender. Does continue to throw up some random shots at times. But efficiency can be highly overrated when the alternative is a guy who forces the action and causes as much havoc as Ron does. Credited with 6 steals, and probably knocked away another 4 or 5 balls as well. Not a perfect game or anything, but its funny having a player of this caliber show back up in town. He is just tangibly better than everybody else we have, and all but the very best the opposition has. I am completely unworried every night about anybody getting the better of him. Be some interesting tests with Kobe and LeBron eventually. But early returns say we've got ourselves a GREAT player. A guy who in his own way may turn out to be nearly as dominant as Webb was in his prime. If he can just hold it together.
Thomas ( B+ ) -- good solid active game for Kenny. The Hawks just had nobody on the inside tonight, and for the most part Kenny could just go where he wanted and do whatever he felt like. And for the most part he played within himself. Not many forces, avoided the dumb mental mistakes. And there is nobody on Atlanta to take advanatge of him defensively. End result was a very solid 17pt 10reb game where he did much to help and little to hurt us. Could have been an A-, but dropped it a tid for setting and opponent, not wanting to hand out too many As for beating an inferior opponent on our home floor.
Miller ( B ) -- one interesting development early in this one was the return of the Brad-centric Princetonesque offense. He was controlling action from out on top. But things began to slip badly in the second quarter when the nifty passes starting turning into not so nifty turnovers and the decisionmaking was shaky. Picked up the boardwork and actually blocked out on the glass in the third, even if it was only Zaza Pachulia. Had a shorter night than the other starters, and the thumb looked like it might be bothering him at times. This one started out strong, got shaky, and finished solid.
Martin ( B+ ) -- Got off to a slow start and had an unfortunate double brain fart at the end of the first half, first carelessly turning the ball over on what should have been our final possession to end the half, and then mysteriously deciding to come down on the other end and just grab his guy rather than play defense, allowing the Hawks to get a pair of FTs and close it to within 8. However the only shot he hit in the first half was a nice one -- a turnaround on the baseline with his momentum heading away from the hoop. Tough shot to make. And came out in the third on a bit of a run to restore a little of his Arco luster. Best thing that he showed again tonight was that little one handed floating stop and pop pullup. Like so much else with his game, its practically brand new, but its quite good given the elevation he gets. If you watch his outside shooting, it can be taken away -- he still needs space and to have his feet firmly set to hit with any consistency. But that pullup -- that's a real pro shot that's going to net him a lot of points in his NBA career. Not his best game and a middling first half. But a big third and another 20pt night at Arco.
Bibby ( C+ ) -- out there and steadier than in Phoenix, but you would have barely noticed him. Kind of just solidly efficient, but definitely working in the shadows and didn't have much to do with this outcome. Better obviously, and encouraging just in that he was able to make mild contributions in efficient fashion rather than being either great or horrible. But nonetheless we were basically working around Mike's lack of production tonight. Will need more from him as we hit the road.
Garcia ( B ) -- quiet first half stint offensively, and got himself sent to the bench after forcing a one on one move and miss. But did grab a bunch of defense boards, albeit most of them uncontested. Did eventually score most of his points in garbagetime, but never got hot from the field and sdtruggled to a 2-7 night. A real positive is that he continues to get work at the backup PG, and may not be that far from solving that problem for us, for this year at least. Rick has gained a lot of confidence in that unit in a short time, and may have seen the error of his Hart ways. Of course the key remains to have Artest, or maybe Miller, on the floor at the same time to actually run the offense -- Cisco just needs to get it up the floor.
Reef ( A- ) -- started off quiet offensively, but was actually having one of his best rebounding games of the season. Then went on a scoring run in the early 4th to help us maintain the commanding lead and finished with a very nice 10pt 8reb game. Not sure whether it was getting back at his old team, making a pitch for his starting spot, or just the weakness of the Atlanta frontline. But whatever it was, this is the sort of rounded game from Reef which can really help us.
Skinner ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Hart ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Sampson ( INC ) -- garbagetime
Price ( INC ) -- garbagetime, made a couple of good defensive plays in his minutes
Adelman ( A- ) -- Ahh...the Hawks. Like a breath of fresh air for every struggling team in the league for a decade now. No matter who you are, no matter how bad things are going, the Hawks will always make you feel good about yourselves and glad you're not them. Tonight they hung close for about a half. Or rather we let them hang close by making a pile of braindead turnovers before Rick's halftime speech/adjustments really seemed to do the job (in particular the move to sic Artest on Johnson, and I do not use the word "sic" by accident). But you can just see that they are a young team with an inferior goto guy and incapable of squeezing anybody on defense for even short spurts. No point guard to set the tempo. No big man to shut down the interior. Talent, but directionless and flavorless talent. In response tonight Rick REALLY tightened the rotation. It was effectively 7 men, and then the bench cleared for a few minutes of garbagetime. But Reef was the only big man backup, an Garcia the only little man backup as we utilized those players' versatility and did not have to worry about either a great PG or great C taking advantage of our out of position guys. Atlanta has neither. The 7 man rotation could also be a very good thing for Cisco no matter what we do with Bonzi. Even if Bonzi returns, Cisco may now be able to get a lot of his minutes as a backup to Mike. If Bonzi does not return, Cisco is positioning himself as a one man 1/2/3/ backup for all three of the Bibby/Martin.Artest trio. Also means we may be able to focus on a shotblocker at the trading deadline, and just call Garcia/Artest the backup PG the rest of the year. And so anyway, very short rotation that produced a blowout as we got good very good games from just about everybody. And this is Rick's preferred short rotation pattern, and that of many top coaches really. Pick your best 8 and let them play. And it really helps if you have some versatile benchers. One question I do have to ask on an otherwise successful night, was...Rick? What the hell is Ron Artest doing on the floor in this one with 3 minutes to go in the game?
Last edited:
GO KINGSS!!!!!!
