Hawks have yet to find the toughness in the post that has to come from exceptionally gifted youngsters Horford and Marvin Williams, a rugged second-year guy in Shelden Williams,
and veterans Zaza Pachulia and Lorenzen Wright.ზაზას რაიტის გვერდით აყენებენ ,როგორც ვეტერანს
ისე საინტერესო სტატიაა ატლანტას პროგრესის შესახებ:
It’s pretty easy to rattle off the top three teams in the Eastern Conference. The Celtics have been dominant all season, the Magic were unbeatable while following the same pattern as last season, and the Pistons have become the hottest team of all.
Name the fourth. C’mon, I dare you. Here’s a hint: They haven’t been in the playoffs this century, and they finished last in home capacity attendance last season, playing in front of just 78 percent, and are up only slightly this time around in one of the biggest metro markets in the south.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Atlanta Hawks.
Off to a 14-12 start for Mike Woodson, the Hawks begin their holidays with a four-game winning streak and a starting lineup dominated by youth, only to have a 33-year-old veteran point guard return from that last playoff team in 1999. All of a sudden, journeyman backup Anthony Johnson has surprisingly given them the direction they’ve sorely lacked.
Sure, he was around to finish up the final 27 games last season. But he’s starting now and the Hawks have won 12 of 18 games in his direction, a transformation that has not been lost on Woodson. In his fourth season, the popular coach entered this season with a 69-177 record (.280) and certainly figured to be one of the prime candidates to win the annual first-coach-to-be fired derby. But with Johnson averaging 13.5 points, 9.5 assists and 1.0 steals during the modest winning streak, the team’s young talent has stabilized.
"A.J. has been phenomenal," Woodson said. "He’s running our ball club. He’s getting the ball where it’s got to go, he’s defending for us and he’s scoring. He’s doing everything a point guard is supposed to do. It’s beautiful to see because I think guys are really starting to latch on around him and playing along right along with him."
It helps that they got to know him late last season, and that the team can stop calling him Dad or Sir considering the average age of the other four starters is 22.5 – Joe Johnson (26), Josh Smith (22), Marvin Williams (21) and Al Horford (21). That’s not to mention significant bench players Josh Childress (24) and Acie Law (22) coming back from injuries.
It seems that Woodson and the team have found their stride, playing smaller, faster and smarter as time progresses. It doesn’t hurt that after the top three teams in the East, everybody else is trying to find their way. Joe Johnson remains one of the top all-around young talents in the league, averaging 28.8 points and 7.0 assists over the past four games, including 16 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter of the big win at Washington. At 6-foot-7 and 230, although a cut below in presence and overall game, he is from a similar athletic mold as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant – yet with a far less dynamic personality.
On the flip side, Smith, coming right out of the fabled Oak Hill Academy, had to tone it down a bit in attitude and flamboyance to find his niche. What nobody knew was that he would become such an exceptional stat-stuffer, averaging 17.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 3.2 blocks and a shade under 2.0 steals.
Childress brings similar versatility from the bench as the sixth man, but the Hawks have yet to find the toughness in the post that has to come from exceptionally gifted youngsters Horford and Marvin Williams, a rugged second-year guy in Shelden Williams, and veterans Zaza Pachulia and Lorenzen Wright.
So chances are they’ll be overpowered from lack of experience in the paint, but this is far more encouraging than recent years, and at least for now they’ve overcome the error of drafting Marvin Williams in 2005 and not taking Deron Williams or Chris Paul when they already had talent up front. The hope is that Law can fill that void when he grows up.
Nonetheless, they are playing fearless basketball right now with the veteran Johnson running the club. Now, if they can just clean up the ludicrous ownership squabbling that’s been going on in court for more than two years, actually get the inert local fans (just 14,750 per game so far) excited for a change, and continue to grow together, they’ve certainly got a shot at making the playoffs for the first time since 1999.
"We’ve just got to keep improving from this point on," Woodson said. "We talked about playing .500 basketball … and anything above that is just icing on the cake. So we’ve got to keep climbing. Take it a game at a time. It just shows that we’re starting to grow up. We’re making plays down the stretch of games that you need to make at both ends of the floor.
"Every win is important for us. We don’t want to be here in March and April looking at games we could have won. These are games we should win. We’re at home. If we’re talking about making the playoffs, you’ve got to win games at home. That’s important. I’m going to keep pushing them every time we step out on that Philips Arena floor. We’ve just got to get our fans to keep coming and support us because we need their support."
This post has been edited by lasha23 on 25 Dec 2007, 12:09 
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ზაზა ფაჩულია, ნაწილი III
