| First Place Hawks Not A Fluke Authored by Brian Reynolds - November 17, 2009 - 10:30 pm
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The win was Atlanta’s fifth in a row, and kept the team perfect at Philips Arena (5-0).
Before the season began, Atlanta was regarded as a middle of the pack type of team in a conference that was supposed to be heavily dominated by the Big Three – Boston, Orlando, and Cleveland.
But after a week that included wins against Denver and Boston, people around the league are starting to get the feeling that this Hawks team might be better than initially thought.
On Monday, ESPN’s Marc Stein ranked the Hawks as the number one team in his latest power rankings. After the win against Portland, Head Coach Mike Woodson was asked about that ranking.
“I don’t even know what the power rankings are,” said Woodson, now in his sixth year in Atlanta. “The bottom line is we are just trying to stay at the top. That’s the name of the game.”
Last year, Woodson was keen on “righting the ship” and erasing bad habits. This year, he seems to have bigger expectations for a club that has improved - at least record-wise - in each year since he took over as head coach in 2004.
I asked Woodson about his team’s position in the division going forward.
“It’s kind of nice sitting at the top of your division, isn’t it?” asked Woodson. “We all want to win the division and I am not hiding that from my players. We’re here for a reason. Why not play the rest of the year to try and win it?”
The Hawks have been led, as always, by three-time All-Star Joe Johnson. Against Portland, Johnson scored 18 of his 35-point in the fourth quarter and overtime and seemed to be un-guardable at times. But even he gives a lot of credit to the development and maturity of his teammates for the team’s explosive start.
“It’s just a lot of growth, man,” said Johnson. “Two, three, four years ago, we would have lost a game like this [against Portland].” With the growth and maturity of guys like Marvin Williams and Josh Smith, I think we can be as good as we want to be.”
Smith, who surprisingly has not attempted a three-point field goal this season after averaging 1.3 per game a year ago, echoed that same attitude.
“We don’t have any give-ups in us,” Smith said after his 20-point, 16-rebound effort against the Blazers. “We stay fighting and persevere. I feel confident. The team is confident. We feel like we can beat any team in the league.”
The Hawks fell behind by 12 points at one point in the third quarter and started the fourth period trailing by nine, 67-58. However, the team stuck with it and was able to pull out a big win against a very hot Portland team – previous winners of six straight.
Atlanta will get another test at home this Wednesday night when they host Miami, whom they knocked out of the first-round in last season’s playoffs. Dwyane Wade’s squad has been fast out of the gates as well, winning seven of their first nine games.
While we’re not ready to hand the Eastern Conference Championship to the Hawks 11 games into the season, don’t dismiss them when discussing the conference’s elite teams.
They are deep and they are motivated. There is no doubt that with the development of guys like Smith and Al Horford - plus the acquisitions of Jamal Crawford (averaging 16.6 points off the bench) and big man Joe Smith - that the Hawks are an improved club from a team that made the Eastern Conference semi-finals a year ago.
“I know it’s early,” said Johnson. “But coming from where we have come from as a team, right now it does feel good [to be atop of the Eastern Conference]. But we can’t relax. We can’t be satisfied. We still have a lot of work to do.”
More Game Notes – Al Horford connected on his first career three-pointer after six unsuccessful attempts with three seconds remaining in the third quarter…Rudy Fernandez made two buzzer-beating three pointers – one at the end of the first quarter and the other to force overtime…Portland’s last two losses have now come against Atlanta, as they also fell to the Hawks at the Rose Garden on November 3rd…Announced attendance was 12,997, but Philips Arena was awkwardly empty at tip-off.
--Brian Reynolds is a contributing writer for RealGM and a recent graduate of Emory University. He can be reached at Brian.Matthew.Reynolds@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter for most every Hawks home game at BReynolds404. |
