Supposedly the Altanta Hawks do it right. They limit the playing time of their starters. Not many heavy MPG on the Hawks. Korver still went down with an injury. They just were swept by Lebron James and a Cavs team with a hobbled / absent Kyrie Irving and an absent Kevin Love. Supposedly the Atlanta Hawks do it right. They have a "smart" motion offense. They share the ball. They just were swept by Lebron James and a Cavs team with a hobbled / absent Kyrie Irving and an absent Kevin Love Supposedly the Atlanta Hawks have a modern coach in Mike Budenholzer. He's the coach of the year. He's one of the smart ones. He sucked on the teat of Pops. They just were swept by Lebron James and a Cavs team with a hobbled / absent Kyrie Irving and an absent Kevin Love. Supposedly the Atlanta Hawks have a modern approach to roster construction. They have a stretchy 4 in Milsap. He creates space. They just were swept by Lebron James and a Cavs team with a hobbled / absent Kyrie Irving and an absent Kevin Love that is starting a traditional power forward in Tristan Thompson. Supposedly Thibs and the Bulls were a major disappointment this year. They lost to the Cavs in 6. The Hawks lost to the Cavs in 4. The Hawks were the #1 seed in the East. This is a fireable offense for Thibs. Supposedly JR Smith was a worthless NBA basketball player. John Paxson didn’t even think he was worth a roster spot. He’s lighting it up in these playoffs with a TS% of 60.4% and is on his way to the NBA Finals in a key role. Its funny when reality doesn't play along with the narrative.
mmh... Cavs Celtics 4-0 Cavs Hawks 4-0 Cavs Bulls 4-2 Bulls have probably have done something better than the Hawks
The fact that the Hawks lost to the Cavs doesn't mean any of those things you mentioned aren't desireable goals. The Hawks got to the ECF because of those things, not in spite of them. Many people didn't even have the Hawks in the playoffs this year. No one had them pegged for the season they had. So they clearly outperformed their talent level. Why? Most people seem to agree that it was because of their shooting, movement, and good team play......the exact things you insinuated were impotent. And you're right that those things often ARE impotent when the other team clearly has better talent. The big reason the Cavs won is because they had the two best players in the series. In particular, they have the best player in the NBA on their roster. However, if your point is that the Cavs won because of that...........what's the big deal? Teams still have to figure out a way to maximize their chances of success, no matter who's on their roster, and it looked like the Hawks did the best job of any team in the NBA at that. So maybe they were pretty smart for doing all of those things so well.
Good post. But I would point out that the Hawks wouldn't have made the finals if they played Cleveland in the 2nd round as we did. Also the Hawks suffered a couple of key injuries (Korver, for one) that isn't expected with the lower minutes they played all year.
http://espn.go.com/chicago/nba/stor...increasing-consideration-firing-tom-thibodeau Thibs and the Bulls took 2 games from the "injury-hit" Cavs while Pops lineage Budenhozer got swept. Despite MPG balance. Despite "dynamic offensive flow." The Hawks still had injuries to fight through in the playoffs despite careful minutes management. Swept, swept, swept. As for talent, Rose isn't an all-star anymore and Noah was a shell of his former self. Pau missed time, to be expected for a man his age. Cavs were clearly the more talented team, as any team playing against Lebron James is. I wonder if the Hawks are "dissatisfied" with Budenholzer, despite not being able to even win one game against the "injury-hit" Cavs? Maybe if the Hawks had McDermott and played him more it would have turned out differently for them. Perhaps a bidding war for Hoiberg with ensue between the Hawks and Bulls. Hoiberg can fix the Hawks. All the Hawks bag of tricks failed them miserably, when it counted. Dynamic offense could not even win one game. Minutes management led to a banged up team come playoff time. Just like the Jen Swanson approach led to plenty of injuries to deal with for the Bulls come playoff time. The only real desirable goal is to win the NBA championship. It looks like the play great players heavy minutes approach (Cavs) was good enough this season to get to the Finals out of the east. The Jen Swanson approach and the Atlanta Hawks approach didn't work. All three of these teams had injury issues to deal with down the stretch. Fire Thibs for winning two games against the Cavs (and being a whisper away in game 4 from probably taking the series) against a more talented team. Laud Budenholzer for getting swept. Budenholzer is one of the smart ones. Swept, swept, swept. Bulls were 11th in the NBA this season in Offensive EFF (pretty good!). Hawks were 6th (super-smart!). Bulls were also 11th in defensive EFF. A balance. http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats The narrative does not match reality.
