The Hawks Motor Through the Detroit Pistons; Hawks Win By 8

It feels like ages since the last time the Hawks won. The Hawks last win before last night actually was on Tuesday, March 15th, but it felt long. Probably because all everyone could see and read around the blogopshere or in online newspaper websites are negative thoughts about this Hawks team (even when they win). Well deserved I must say as the Hawks have been pretty horribly, but the Hawks did stop some of the bleeding yesterday. They didn’t completely heal the would, but they did get to put a band-aid on it. But as we all know, we can take off band-aids anytime and contiinue the blood gushing.

I didn’t get to watch the whole game. I only managed to watch most of the third quarter and all of the fourth quarter. With the game being so early in the East Coast, it’s even earlier (11:00 AM) here in the West Coast. Also, with yesterday being Sunday, I had (and wanted) to be at my church for my weekly worship. Anyway, with no DVR, I didn’t have the pleasure to re-watch the entire game. That being said, I won’t be recapping the whole game, but I’ll just share my thoughts on what I did get to see.

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The third quarter was actually enjoyable to watch. I felt the Hawks played with a good sense of urgency, something they needed to do since Detroit wouldn’t really bow down to anything. Everyone seemed to share the ball, moving around, and running their plays on the offensive end. Their shot selection was pretty good too. On the defensive end, they seemed to play on a string. Whenever there was a pick set, players would either quickly recover or switch quickly to prevent any quick easy shots. It seemed most players were actually giving more effort on the defensive side of the ball. Well, with the Hawks playing better (than usual) on both sides of the ball, extended their 5 point lead (that’s how much they were leading by when I first started watching) to a 14 point lead just passed the midway point of the 3rd quarter. However around the 2 minute mark in the third quarter, the good play the Hawks showed disappeared and their double digit lead quickly got cut down. They didn’t play much defense and their offense played….silly. The Pistons got on a 10-3 run on the last 2 minutes of the 3rd, and cut the lead down to 5.

In the 4th quarter, the Hawks played decently. The Hawks never really extended the lead to a safe one (nor was it in dire danger), they just made sure the Pistons never took the lead. They didn’t. The Pistons eventually folded when time became their enemy (2 minute mark, down by 12).

There’s not much to say from what I saw. The Hawks showed they are clearly the better team and when they step on the gas, they can quickly blowout a bottom feeder team like the Pistons but as we all know and seen, this Hawks team took their foot off the pedal and let the opposing team back in it. Hawks need to learn how to keep the lead, because if this were a playoff team and not the Pistons, I’m not sure if the Hawks would have won this one.

Noteable notes:

• Jeff Teague received a DNP-CD. It is kind of sad to see him completely fall out of the rotation (again) when just two games ago he was playing for most of the game. However, I wasn’t too down about him not playing (in this game anyway). Hinrich was playing really well and took up the majority of the minutes (as he should when he plays the way he did), and the few minutes Jamal got at the point, the lead was fairly safe. Don’t get me wrong now, I still think Teague should be a rotational player in this team, but if you take the minutes Jamal Crawford got at the point guard position away from him… then he has a problem with his minutes. If you play Teague at the one then Jamal more at the two since Jamal needs his minutes, Joe’s minutes will either decrease or Marvin Williams’ minutes will decrease (if Joe moves to SF while Jamal plays SG), and both of them played well enough to get the minutes they have gotten. I don’t know…I think juggling minutes is a lot harder than what people think. I would find it hard too (if I were coach) to find minutes for Teague if the players that played and are better than Teague, didn’t really play badly.
• The shot selection from what I saw was actually pretty good. Their point of attack was good I should say. They had a well balanced offense. They would sometimes feed the post, they would sometimes attack the basket, and they would sometimes shoot jumpshots. I think the offense that I saw for most of the third quarter is what I want to see. A well balanced one that isn’t predictable. Josh Smith shot a couple bad ones (what’s new?) in the fourth quarter, but for the most part, I liked what I saw.
• Attendance was actually not bad. It actually looked pretty full on TV. The total attendance was 17,580. Seems about right. I thought attendance would have been horrible, since there was so many things going on, on Sunday. Maybe the Hawks should do Kids Day for every game?