Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Alright, long story short here, we played like crap.
In fact all 4 of the pillars of the team played like crap, Cuz was poor, Rondo threw the ball over the gym again, Rudy was terrible...and joining them was George Karl, who simply refused to use WCS's length, because he apparently needs to relearn the lesson again and again, and watched us brick three after three after he benched the only guy hitting them (Ben) .
In short the whole team felt just off their game somehow. Its something in the Atlanta water I think. You can see how eternally cranky its makes Mr. Slim.
So frustrating, seemingly unnecessary loss. And it drops us back to 4-8 and back into danger of returning to joke status. The good news is that in my theoretical projection of our games last week, where looking ahead I could see us reaching .500 on Jan 7 against the Lakers, I assumed this loss. Its frustrating. not fatal.
Boxscore
Stats: 29min 14pts (5-13, 0-1, 4-4) 6reb 3ast 2stl 0blk 2TO
Summary: thank you Rudy, for sucking eggs. Forced everything into traffic. Mysteriously pulled in mid 3rd when looked like he might get something going.
Gay ( D+ ) -- Rudy Gay started this game in the hole as far as my grading was concerned. On the very first defensive play he literally ran away from a wide open Justin Holiday with the ball outside the arc, giving the Hawks an early 3-0 lead, giving Rudy an F to start, and he was forced to work his way up from there. His offense didn't really help too much, as he didn't shoot very well and forced up a couple of impossible shots in the lane, one of those surrounded by five white shirts, and he committed a big turnover on a drive in the final few minutes as we attempted our comeback. On defense, Rudy was inexplicably matched up on Schroder, and it didn't really work. Schroder scored 9 while Rudy was guarding him and quite a few more on those obligatory switches when a big man peeled Rudy off of him on a switch. All told, Rudy allowed at least 6 open threes to be taken (hit at 50%) due to poor effort on D. His finest defensive effort of the night probably came on the decisive play of the game, where Paul Millsap attacked him and was forced into a very difficult shot in the lane. Unfortunately that shot went in, and the Hawks took a 4 point lead. About the best thing I can say about Rudy's game today (outside of his good rebounding effort) is that he was NOT in the game during the miserable final three minutes of the first half where we dug ourselves that ten-point hole we never made it out of. --Capt.
Stats: 16min 0pts (0-0, 0-0, 0-0) 1reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 1TO
Summary: should not have started, but played good defense in early stint, thereafter was small and completely ineffective.
Acy ( D+ ) -- got the headshaking start because obviously the answer when an opponent starts a talented undersized PF is to counter by starting an untalented undersized PF yourself to match him and guarantee you lose the position battle. But for about 4 or 5 minutes at the beginning of the game Quincy was alleviating some of those concerns with some good hustle plays on defense, including racing back to break up a Hawks break, and a block on the perimeter on Holiday ass well. But as the numbers amply indicate, the hustle, or at least any impact from it, did not survive past the first timeout, and we began to pay for his midgetsness late in the half as we collapsed and had no rim protection or rebounding whenever Boogie got pulled to the perimeter chasing a Hawks shooter. The same nonsense resumed as Acy started the 3rd and was completely ineffective in there leading, finally!, to his replacement by WCS in the mid quarter. 0pts 1reb 1ast and the worst +/- on the team in only 16 minutes isn't a quality start no matter what the tired old man we elected coach may say. --Brick
Stats: 34min 24pts (7-20, 1-5, 9-11) 12reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 3TO
Summary: inefficient, off his game, and frustrated from the beginning. Chippy too, and several times reacted by throwing elbows. Poor after the first.
Cousins ( C- ) -- even in the first quarter of this one, while Boogie was off to another 13pt start, there was something the matter with his head. I have no idea what it was -- but this was one of those games where he was going to be sensitive and overreact to any contact from nearly the beginning of the game, so there was a lot of flailing and complaining even before there seemed to be much reason for him to be upset. Still, he made a number of the plays he can make, including several catches of fullcourt Rondo passes that I can only assume were called for in the gameplan because they were so risky . He hit a jumper, and after a scrap with Splitter hit him with a three, a drive, a couple of FTs, and a beautiful baseline spin move (later in the game Splitter would remember that one and catch Cuz next time he tried to go to it). But there were also a couple of uncharacteristic fumbles of catches and boards, despite the good numbers the 12 boards here were a little soft, mostly of the uncontested variety, and after our late 2nd quarter collapse, Cuz came out in the third and gave us little, missing and missing, still chippy, and he wouldn't stop shooting threes. And this is one of those games where that is unacceptable again. 3 or 4 of 5 is one thing. You're hot, you take them. But no 6'111" 270lb center should continue going to that well when its not his night. He was just off, and some of the fears I had that by wussifying his game we were making him deadly against big centers, but quite guardable by the blown up PFs seemed to manifest. Now the question becomes whetehr one of those elbows he threw might cause us to lose him for the game vs. the Heat. --Brick
Stats: 18min 11pts (4-8, 3-3, 0-0) 1reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Summary: we had ONE guy hitting threes. One. And we benched him for the final 18 minutes. Think the problem may have been Shroeder.
McLemore ( A ) -- There is a little bit of a curve here, as this is not the same timid, listless kid from the first five games of the season. Ben was taking and hitting open shots tonight. More importantly, he was aggressively hounding Korver all game long, never giving him space for a catch and shoot. The only shot Korver hit against Ben was a tough leaning three coming around a screen, and Ben had a hand in his face. You have to live with those. Ben, on the other hand, hit all three of his takes from the arc tonight and had a good basket in transition, going into Horford's body to deny the chasedown block. Inexplicably, Karl decided to play a recovering Collison over Ben down the final stretch of the game when the team's defense was struggling to stick to shooters. Another strong showing for the kid and another instance of Ben being the best perimeter defender on the team by just sticking to his assignment. --Hadlowe
Stats: 31min 12pts (6-9, 0-0, 0-0) 12reb 10ast 1stl 0blk 7TO
Summary: Rajon Rondo got another triple double tonight. Nobody mentioned it however, because he almsot got a quadruple double with silly TOs.
Rondo ( C ) -- I really did not know what to make of this game. Rondo notched a triple double. He made some great passs. But even half of the great passes were these incredibly risky full court bombs to Rudy or Cuz basket hanging amongst crowds of Hawks I jsut have to imagine that was gameplanned, but it was so so risky. And even the non-resiky stuff was an adventure as Rajon was just flat missing people. the worst was a terrible terrible pass out of bounds with 50 seconds to go when holy poop, it looked like we might actually find a way to steal the game. Just really hard to be reliable general leader guy when you are Benedict Arnolding and giving the other team the ball as often as your own. Not sure what the source of the turnover problems is, but it really has to end. --Brick
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