You Have To Watch When...

So I was getting ready for bed last night and flipped on the TV to catch Sportscenter. Instead the UConn vs Syracuse men's basketball game was still going. At this point, it was the second over time game.

I am tired this morning.


You see, I felt this obligation to watch the end of the game. At the 2OT point, anything can really happen. So I stayed up later than intended to watch the finish of the game (which, compared to the previous 7 periods, was fairly anticlimatic).

This all got me thinking this morning: There should be rules to determine what situations mandate watching the rest of a game if you stumble across it inadvertently. Please feel free to add to this as it is a work in progress (in no particular order. perhaps we could rank them after a solid list is formed).

--Any college basketball game involving a top 25 team that is in the 2nd OT or later --MLT
--Any NFL game where the trailing team has the ball and less than 3 minutes to score --MLT
--Any MLB game that goes 11 or more innings --MLT
--Any CFB game where a huge underdog is leading after halftime -- MLT
--Any game where a significant record may be broken --MLT
--Any NBA game where a major star has over 30 points in the first half (LeBron, Kobe, Wade and perhaps Durant and Roy in the future)--MLT
--Any major college rivalry that is either close at the end (1 score in football or 2 possessions in basketball with under 2 minutes to go). --Daniel

Hawks and Drinking

Right now the two go hand-and-hand. Watching the Hawks play makes me need a drink more than a day of clients screaming at me. And this tidbit from the AJC certainly does not help, "Hawks coach Mike Woodson benched starting power forward Josh Smith after halftime, the result of a heated disagreement between the two in the locker room during the break."

Scotch? Yes please.

Campaigning for Acie Law

So MLT, understandably, turned off the Hawks game against the Knicks before the brief 3-minute stint by Acie Law in the last 3 minutes of the game. Woody called a timeout with 3 minutes left to play with the Hawks down by 15. I decided to stay with the Hawks game for two reasons. One, you never know if you can come back against the Knicks. Two, Woody might actually put in Law, who had not played the whole game.

Teams score the easiest against the Knicks when you can penetrate from the perimeter. They're not so great on the help defense. Bibby, while a great outside shooter, cannot beat his guy off the dribble. Law, on the other hand, was all about the dribble penetration in college (I refer to college because Woody hasn't let him play enough in the NBA to reference any of his deeds in the pros).

So what happens when Law finally enters in the game against the Knicks? He goes buck wild. More than likely Woody thought the game was out of reach, so he didn't bother trying to call "plays" (these "plays" usually include people running around aimlessly with no one getting open for 3-4 seconds and then isolating for Joe. Why we need a timeout to set this up is beyond me). With this freedom Law drove past his man on pretty much every offensive possession and either gave to Al for an easy bucket or kicked to an open shooter on the perimeter. He even hit an open 3 of his own. He got 4 assists in that brief 3-minute stint. Then he made a great defensive play on Duhon on the sideline that caused a turnover with 8 seconds to play with the Hawks down by only 4. Law almost single-handedly caused an 11-point swing.

At this point I am praying that they just inbound the ball to Law and let him continue to do his thing. Instead Woody calls a timeout and tries to call one of his patented "plays." The result? Joe throws up an airball from 3. Sad when I feel like the Hawks have a better chance to score when the coach has nothing to do with the play.

Who to fault?

So after miserable performances like last night's loss against the Knicks, where does the blame ultimately lie?

Perhaps it lies at the feet of Josh Smith, who was outrebounded by every other member of the Hawks, including Mike Bibby.

Perhaps it lies at the feet of the collective 6-25 shooting effort behind the arc.

Perhaps it lies at the feet of Mike Bibby for being horrible on defense and -8 for the game.

Really though, it lies at the feet of Head Coach Mike Woodson and the media (especially including our own announcers).

So, by now the Woodson fault is probably obvious. Failure to develop Acie Law (even though he was terrific in his 3 minutes last night +10), failure to develop an offense, failure to adjust to other teams, failure to continue pounding the ball deep when we have an advantage inside, failure to appropriately manage minutes thus wearing the major players out, and so on.

But why the media and local announcers? Because they have failed to hold Woodson accountable. A collective amnesia has overcome the media ever since the Hawks took the Celtics to 7. Somehow, losing in the first round became more than just a great sign of an emerging team. It became a level of infallibility for a coach who has still lost almost twice as many games as he has won. Instead of understanding that the wins over Boston were a result of more effort and grit than coaching acumen, the coach is getting credit for "motivating them" than is actually due.

So I can't really blame Woodson too readily for his failures this season. For example: say you are a sales representative for a company. After months of not selling anything, you decide that the effort you were putting forth wasn't worth it. So you begin to sleep on the job, show up late, not wear a tie. You are seemingly on the brink of being fired. One day a desperate customer happens upon you and you make a huge sale that breathes a little life into the company. You are then hailed as the savior to the company and given free reign to work as you please. So you go back to your old habits, showing up late, sleeping at work, etc. Only you happen to make a sale or two to the previous desperate customer and a couple of his friends. But your boss is okay with this because your "work" is better than before (not really, though) and you are bringing in more business.

That's where we are with the Hawks. Only no one (other than bloggers whose word means nothing) is willing to acknowledge it. Sure, we could make more sales and huge profits for the company if we got a salesman who knew what he was doing and could put his team in the right position. But the increase in sales we have experienced is sufficient for management despite there being no change in philosophy. So, Woody gets credit for the Hawks winning despite horrible mismanagement of the roster and the national and local media give him a pass for effectively sleeping on the job and showing up late to work.

And I can't blame Woody for that, totally. He has been basically told that he is doing fine.

During last night's game, the Hawks were 1-16 on 3 pointers at one point but had scored 42 points in the paint in the first quarter. And yet we are still hoisting 3's in the fourth quarter rather than going back to what was successful early on. Sure, it was Woodson's fault by not forcing the ball in to the post. But it was also Wilkins' (who has a terrible conflict of interest) and Rathburn's job to criticize the Hawk's (i.e. Woodson's) lack of strategy and adjustment. Only they didn't. Maybe they are only allowed to be homers, but I wish they would be a bit more like the old Braves announcers. Calling it like it is may not be nice, but it draws attention to the weaknesses and forces management to fix them. And surely that is not a bad thing.