Rollercoaster

The Atlanta Hawks, still playing without Joe "Kid Dy-no-mite" Johnson, ran a train through the Sacramento Kings on Monday night. They were having fun. The Sports Pickle had a little fun too:

Leading the Sacramento Kings by 32 points midway through the fourth quarter on Monday night, the Atlanta Hawks packed up their gear and left the court early in attempt to beat the traffic leaving the arena.

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Greatest moment of the night: Esteban Batista getting called for a stupid traveling call with 10 seconds to go in the game and the Hawks up by a thousand. Coach Woodson jumps up immediately and yells at him. Esteban tried to act all cool with the ball and hand it off behind his back to Salim, but Salim wasn't paying attention and Esteban ending up fumbling with the ball and walking around, pretending like nobody was going to call anything. What an idiot.

The Hawks looked pretty good- the exact opposite of how they looked against Boston and Indiana last week. It is really hard to know how much of the team's attitude is the players, and how much is Coach Woodson. They claimed to have responded to his public derision after the Indiana game by playing hard on defense against the Kings. They did a good job, but what the hell? Do they really need that kind of motiviation to try hard? The playoffs are most certainly not a forgone conclusion, so what is wrong with them? It may not be Woodson's fault, but if he can't get them motivated every night then there is something wrong. Either Woodson needs to be replaced or the players need to be replaced, and that's the GM's call. I don't think Billy Knight is going to make that call. We're still a few months away from knowing what will happen with the Atlanta Spirit, and nobody is going anywhere until that is resolved.