I liked school. I was one of those people who could easily have become a school junkie. I have 2 more degrees than I really need, just because I liked learning stuff. Pondered taking some time to finish up another one lately too.
Now being TAKEN to school however...that's not as much fun. If you didn't have to watch this game, only have it on tape delay -- don't. Just don't. There is absolutely no point to it. I had to watch it, there's no reason for the pain to spread. The Hawks literally set several NBA season records against us. At halftime they were on pace to score 150. They slowed down...and only dropped 130 on us. DO NOT WATCH IT. I'll briefly describe whatever action needs describing below. And gee, that Malone fella sure is looking smarter by the minute. Yikes.
Normally of course Girls, but been a lot of them lately again. So I'll give the ladies around here a choice: either a) I can do Girls, or b) since we got spanked and abused I can do something 50 Shades of Grey related. Don't worry...too much.
P.S. BTW, in 10 games under Karl we are allowing 109.5pts/gm on defense. Where is Corbin when you need him as defensive coordinator?
Boxscore
Stats: 35min 23pts (10-15, 3-4, 0-0) 4reb 1ast 0stl 1blk 4TO
Gay ( D- ) -- If you looked at nothing but the box score, 23 points, on 10 of 15 shooting, 4 rebounds and 1 assist, you'd probably think his grade should be at least a B. I purposely left out the 4 turnovers and 0 fouls, because they tell the complete story. The reason Gay had zero fouls, is because he was never close enough to anyone he was supposed to be guarding to touch them, much less foul them. I seriously considered giving him an F. I have never seen anyone of his stature go thought an entire game just wandering around the key. It got to a point later in the game, where I had no idea who he was supposed to be guarding because he was near no one. His one good moment came when he blocked Milsap's shot along the left baseline. It's a shame becasue his shot was on target tonight. He started by hitting a pullup 16 footer. He followed that with a corner three. A bit later he scored on a putback of his own missed shot, but in between that putback, and the corner three, a lot of bad things happened. First he cheated way off of Carroll, who hit a three. Then he left Carroll to double on the ball, and Carroll slipped past him for a backdoor. Gay then threw a horrible pass that never got there which ended up being a layup for the Hawks. He followed that with another bad pass for a turnover. He then switched to Korver, who he wandered away from, and Korver hit a three. I think you get the picture. This was just the beginning, when he was at least going through the motions of actually being in the same state as the player he was defending. In the second half he became a total spectator on the floor. I watched a long rebound go right over his head and land about two feet behind him as the stood there and watched Carroll run about 12 feet from where he was to grab the rebound. Gay never moved. In one of his final sequences, his man, Scott I believe set up just outside the three point line on the left elbow. Korver was set up in the left corner being guarded by Stauskas. Gay was no where to be found. Stauskas looked over and saw Scott standing there unguarded, and headed in his direction to arrive at about the same time as the ball. But of course, the ball went immediately from Scott to Korver who hit a three. By my count, Gay is responsible for a minimum of 19 points scored by the Hawks. All uncontested shots. But hey, he scored 23 points. He's probably sleeping well tonight. --Baja
Stats: 16min 6pts (2-4, 0-0, 2-2) 3reb 0ast 1stl 0blk 0TO
Landry ( C ) -- got the surprise start, very likely to match up with the only slightly larger Milsap. General impressions would be that Milsap wasn't really the problem tonight, although he did come alive for a while in the 3rd. Other general impression would be that under George Karl Carl Landry's career has gone to utter crap. Karl either never liked him a bit, or think s he's finished. Either way, we basically didn't run a single play to utilize Carl's scoring ability, and other than scoring ability what does Carl Landry have? We seem to think he's Louis Admundsen now. So he was completely invisible until near the end of his minutes when he made a couple of good hustle plays for follows. Added another garbage type follow in the early 3rd during his second stint. And that was basically the sum total of his outing: three garbage type follows, and the honor of guarding a PF who wasn't needed by his team because everybody else was scoring so easily. No other shots not other rebounds, $6.5mil a year. --Brick
Stats: 32min 12pts (3-9, 0-0, 6-6) 14reb 6ast 1stl 0blk 1TO
Cousins ( C ) -- alright, an since I'm late I'm going to stay fairly brief. First and most important note in this one: the Atlanta Hawks were NOT going to let DeMarcus Cousins beat them in this one. If they had to guard him 5 on 1, they were going to do it (I think they may have tried that once), and they were going to make his teammates beat them. And really for the most part -- there were a few forced plays here and there -- Cuz tired to absorb Karl's "if the game calls for a pass, pass" philosophy in response to that. The great and enormous difficulty to that was that in the early game the guys he kicked those passes to simply refused to hit the open threes they were getting -- the gap between their shooting and ours was pathetic, and as soon as these grades are over I'm going to be putting up a thread on the distressing play of Ben. In fact by the time Cuz sat down for the first time he was 0-3, the first two when he was blocked twice by Horford (once on a jumper) in the first minute of the game, and the third when after about 4 straight misses by our "shooters" (this was an easy 10 assist game for him if he were surrounded by the Hawks as teammates rather than our guys) he finally got tired of it and just tried to go across the lane into all those arms. But Cuz not getting a hoop until late in the half was not really a case of Cuz sucking. The Hawks simply said no, and that was that, and the only thing that could have changed it would have been deadly shooting from the other guys, which we don't have. The other end however was less defensible. The bulk of the really terrible defense in this one was our perimeter guys who have jsut reached a level of you gotta be kidding me at this point that is embarrassing. But Cuz himself did not look as focused as he can be, and Horford, who looks to be about a 235 tweener forward anymore, was able to get around him repeatedly with drives and upfakes from the perimeter. Cuz wasn't the problem on defense, he still probably made more good plays on that end than anybody else, but he also made a lot of mistakes and I deeply worry how the embarrassing perimeter D is effecting his willingness to bust his own butt on that end. He began to get a little productivity getting to the line in the late 2nd, and in the third began to get his own game going a little, aided by different shooters actually hitting some of those kickouts. He really really didn't force a fugly night. he ended up with only 1 TO, hit half his shots after the 0-3 start. He was pretty good on the boards (not many were heavily contested). It wasn't a total disaster as far as level of play. But as far as level of productivity? Oh yeah. The Hawks flat took away our engine, and besides Rudy who they were clearly willing to live with and dare to beat them by himself, the rest of our mediocrities were rendered as dangerous as kittens. Its just hard to figure that into this grade. Mostly it felt like Cuz kind of did what he could do given how he was played. --Brick
Stats: 28min 12pts (4-16, 2-8, 2-2) 1reb 3ast 0stl 0blk 2TO
McLemore ( D- ) -- this might be another F, but its just that after the complete collapse in Orlando, anything looked better. But Ben...he really hurt us today. A lesson you might have drawn from this game is that the Hawks had utterly no respect for him...nor should they. They built their gameplan around the idea that they could blatantly smother Boogie with as many men as it took, and they didn't think Ben was capable of shooting them out of it. And again, they were right. Again and again in the early going the kicks came out of the post to Ben, or another perimeter guy who slung it to Ben, and brick, brick brick brick. I think he was 0-5 from 3pt land in the first quarter. And on the other end...what has happened over there? How many times do you have to take your 6'4" athletic butt UNDER a screen against some of the deadliest 3pt shooters in the league before you go...hmmm... Well for Ben, apparently that hmm... moment still hasn't come as he continues to stumble around out on the perimeter like a baby gazelle, all limbs going in all directions. Between he and Rudy it was...wow. The Hawks were literally on pace to score 150 on us by half. I eventually bumped him here to a D- because late in the game after it was long long lost he finally hit a couple of shots, but I mean...he;s failing now. This is his audition an he's failing and I don't have any idea why. He just looks lost all over again. --Brick
Stats: 29min 15pts (6-10, 1-2, 2-2) 3reb 5ast 2stl 0blk 3TO
McCallum ( C ) -- in the early going while this turned into a rout Ray was almost entirely absent. Teague certainly treated him that way on defense, where basically we didn't have any and their PGs could just walk around wherever they wanted and drop off little psasses to three point shooters, who could take whatever open shot THEY wanted. I response...well Ray had nothing. Was having trouble even bringing the ball up and getting us into our offense with more than 10 seconds to go on the clock. Had no idea at all how to get the ball to Cuz in the face of all the pressure. He got a single little dribble turnaround jumper, had multiple TOs and ballhandling errors that just fueled the Atlanta offense and just...help. But as it is sometimes with Ray, after he settled in, late in the half he began to work with Cuz and his point total began to lurch forward. Early in the third he blew another Cuz assist, but got the board and put it back in. A couple of minutes later he got an open court dunk. It was still so incredibly shaky and amateur compared to what the other team was throwing at us, but there was production, and most of it in a rush from the late 2nd into the early 3rd. Along with Nik(1) it at least gave us some sort of guardplay, some sort of pushback. --Brick
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