Don't Look Now, Atlanta is #2 Behind The Celtics

This Atlanta bunch under former Indiana Hoosier, Bobby Knight prodigy Mike Woodson is nipping at the heels of our Celtic heroes. We dropped the earlier contest to them at TD Garden, I believe the C's have either 2 or 3 games left with them in the next 5 weeks. I thought Memphis with their youthful ability would slow the Hawks down earlier this week. However, the Hawks were able to take Rudy Gay out of his rhythm, effectively limit Sam Young and somewhat slow OJ Mayo. We have more than a real virus to deal with in Atlanta. It threatens to become an H1N1 Flu epidemic. While worry exists with competition from Cleveland & Orlando, the Hawks must be given respect and considerable attention from the Celtic stallwarts and brain trust. The Hawks are more dangerous now than they were even in the '07-'08 playoffs. I would have to say the Celtics are overall better now except of the 3 Amigos being older and Posey's departure than in '07-'08's Title Season!-MD.

And Atlanta is #2 (behind only the Celtics) in terms of average point spread per game.

Sam

Atlanta is scary,they can run and shoot 3's with anybody and unfotunately they are still young and have alot of depth.They may be as good as Magic and Cavs or better.....gonna be some wars in the East come playoff time,Cavs might be our best matchup.

Cow, I agree that ATL is probably as good as CLE and ORL, and I might even go so far as to say they are playing even better than those two teams. It's obviously a long season so things can and probably will change, but I watched most of the ORL vs. MIA game last night and ORL didn't impress me at all. They certainly have a ton of talent on their team, but they don't seem to have the chemistry and comrarderie that is needed to win a championship. I personally don't like Stan VanGundy and it doesn't seem like the Magic players do either. When you listed to Doc's interviews at the beginning of quarters, he always says things like "we" aren't playing well right now, "we" have to move the ball better, things like that. Listening to SVG, he says things like "they" aren't playing good basketball righ now and "they" aren't defending anybody. Where's the team unity? SVG has got to be the least inspiring coach in the NBA, with Mike Brown a close second!

Maybe Stan needs to coach incognito. Let brother Jeff lend him the gorilla suit from the ESPN commercials as a disguise! (LOL)-MD.

Maybe if that gorilla suit comes with a muzzle. Stan's OK as long as he's not talking.

Why does it seem Stan VanGundy is always yelling?

Seems and easy turn off to his players.

beat

Atlanta's doing very well, only 2 back in the loss column to us with a win over the Celts in hand. Cleveland and Orlando, last years big wheels, are 3 games back in the loss column.

Still early in the season. An injury to a key player could send us into a short tailspin and any of those 3 teams could catch up, but I'm liking us so far.

bob

Through 1/12, I'd say we have 9 easy games (against not good teams) and 5 hard games (including 2 against Atlanta, one against Orlando, one against Phoenix and one against Miami).

Atlanta's looking at 5 easy and 8 hard (including 2 against the Celts, two against Cleveland, one against the Jazz, one against Denver, one against Miami and one against Orlando).

So, our schedule over the next 3 weeks or so could let us open up a little bit of daylight between us and Atlanta, especially if we win the two against them. On the other hand, everything evens out over the season. If we don't take advantage of this easy stretch to stretch out our lead now, we might be sorry later when their schedule gets easier.

bob

A couple of thoughts.

Regarding Atlanta, they obviously have the potential to be very good, but they're also not long removed from the years when they were lousy. They won 47 games last year, but before that, they had nine straight years under .500. The Celtics have had a couple of times in their history when they turned from lousy to good overnight (with the arrival of Bird and again with the big 3), but the path to championship contention is typically a more gradual one. This current Hawks group hasn't done anything of note in the playoffs (they've won only one playoff series). Atlanta is improved, Atlanta is dangerous, but until they actually make a significant playoff run, I'm still in Missouri Mode (show me).

I'm inclined to think Orlando is a more significant playoff threat because they made it to the finals last year. They are the reigning Eastern champs. Yes, some of the faces have changed, but there's an institutional confidence that comes from winning the conference last year.

The other thing is that I guess I'm different (shock!) in that I think Stan Van Gundy isn't that bad of a coach. I think he made some significant mistakes in the finals (bringing Nelson back was a colossal blunder, as was his use of Alston, which screwed up his head), and I'm not a fan of yellers as coaches, but I see him as a benign yeller, not a totalitarian yeller, if that makes any sense. He's just sort of short and funny-looking and yells because he's exasperated, not because he's angry and threatening. SVG and Howard have their issues and their odd personalities can be (and sometimes are) a problem, but they both seem accommodating enough as individuals to work through that. I don't like a number of things the Magic do, but their basic philosophy of combining Howard inside with perimeter shooters makes them an extremely difficult matchup in the playoffs, as we saw last year.

From a technical standpoint, SVG may not be the greatest coach of all time, but I think he's good enough and good for this scheme. I think he's MILES better than Mike Brown. SVG may not be the greatest coach, but I respect him as a coach. I have very little respect for Mike Brown as a coach.

When Orlando isn't making threes or Howard is in a funk, they can look bad. I didn't see last night's game against Miami, but looking at the box score, it looks like Orlando was little off -- they were only 9 of 28 for threes and 9 of 17 from the line, and Howard wasn't great in any of his key categories -- but it actually looks like Miami played really well. Miami was 7 of 14 on threes, 42 of 51 overall, and had only seven turnovers. Maybe it was lousy defense by Orlando, but I think the Magic are particularly susceptible to looking really bad when they don't play well. In a seven-game series, they can easily bounce right back the next game, and you can't expect them to play lousy four games out of seven. You have to figure out a way to beat them when they play well. That's a challenge, and I think they present a more significant challenge than Atlanta.

Outside

Outside,
Miami played well last night because Orlando played no defense. When you are used to watching the Celtics, defensive deficiencies are easy to spot. Yes, Miami shot well, but any NBA team should hit the majority of their shots when they are wide open. I realize this is only one game, but I still stand by my assertion that Atlanta is playing better basketball than ORL and CLE right now.

I do agree that ATL has to continue to prove that they are an elite team in the East, but so does everybody else. Right now Orlando is not proving that they are the best in the East, conference champs or not. I'm not saying they are a bad team, they are definitely top 4 in the East, I'm just saying their play of late has not impressed me.

I don't necessarily think SVG is a bad coach in the context of X's and O's, I just think he does a poor job motivating his players and getting the best out of them. In the end, isn't that a coaches main objective? He certainly has enough firepower on his team for them to be exceptional and I don't think he's getting the best out of them. I will say that he's probably a better coach than Mike Brown. I still dislike him more, but that's a personality thing more than a coaching thing. They both leave a lot to be desired in the inspiration department.

Kelly,

You're right, Atlanta is definitely playing better than Orlando and Cleveland at this point. And like you, I have little tolerance for not playing hard on defense, so I probably would've been less charitable if I'd actually watched the game last night.

Outside

Atlanta scares me worse than anyone in the east. I feel like they will beat the cavs and give the magic seven games of hell. If no on e gets hurt.

Jeb they are definitely a bad matchup for the C's. Of our 4 losses this year, that one was the worst for me. I think the loss to the Suns was forgivable because it was the first one and the Suns were playing very well at the time. The loss in Indy hurt, but for whatever reason the C's always seem to struggle against that team. The Orlando game we just played awful, and so did the Magic, just a little less awful than us. If Carter wasn't shooting out of his mind that game, we would have won.

I do think the results of our next matchup with ATL will be very different though. KG wasn't 100% the first time, and I think the C's will have something to prove. Actually I'm hoping the next two games against them will be better, I'll be at the Jan. 11 game!

Atlanta is too young – they simply wont last.

In a playoff series, they don’t have the inside players to match up with KG, Perk, Sheed – and they have no one that can handle Paul Pierce, or Rajon Rondo.