[外電] Seeking momentum after blowout
Seeking momentum after blowout
By SEKOU SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/01/06
For Hawks co-captain Al Harrington, the euphoria associated
with Monday's blowout win over the New York Knicks lasted about
as long as his postgame shower.
When all the smiling and loud talk subsided in the Hawks locker
room, he was left with just one sobering thought.
"We can't just keep winning one and then losing three and four,
" he said Monday after the game. "We've got to pile a few of
these [wins] up and really start something."
The only thing the Hawks have piled up in large numbers this
season is losses. They're 12-31 with a chance to equal last
season's win total tonight in Charlotte.
But just the chance to win two consecutive games is more
appealing to Harrington, who has been a part of 100 losses
in his brief stint with the Hawks.
"We're not going to have any more stretches when we lose eight
or nine in a row," he said of the streaks that contributed to
the Hawks' 2-16 start this season. "We're just not that team
anymore."
Maybe. But what kind of team are they?
Last season they failed to win back-to-back games, the only
team in the league to do so. This season they've strung
together winning streaks of two or more games four times.
Yet they've followed up a win with another win only once in
the past four weeks.
"That's something we'll have to think about for the rest of
this season, and it's regrettable," Hawks forward Josh Childress
said of his team's penchant for squandering opportunities.
"Our struggles early on haven't been being in games. It's been
finishing games.
"That's where we've really put ourselves in a bind. The kind of
unselfishness and defensive intensity we played with against
[the Knicks] is the way we need to play every night. And until
we do, we're vulnerable to our own demons."
That's where the lessons learned in Monday's win need to kick
in, Hawks coach Mike Woodson said.
Because just like nuggets of hope are plucked from losses,
Woodson wants to make sure his team understands the things
they didn't do well in their most recent win.
The Hawks turned the ball over four times in the fourth
quarter and allowed the Knicks to trim what had been a 30-point
lead to 20 because of their carelessness with a lead.
Were they more careful in their execution, the 120-101 win
might have been even bigger.
"You're not ever pleased with that," Woodson said of the
sloppiness late. "We don't get a lot of fast-break points,
so when you get an opportunity to run you have to capitalize
on those opportunities. We threw the ball all over the place.
We have to get better in that area because that's part of the
game. You have to use those opportunities to get better."
That might seem like nitpicking for a team that should be
glad to win a game. But to a man, Woodson's players agreed
that in order to maintain the momentum from Monday, they had
to cast an extremely critical eye at their own performance,
even an effort as complete as that one.
"That's what you call a complete game," Harrington said of
the win over the Knicks. "We have pride. We don't want to
get our [tails] kicked every night. So we have to make sure
we remember what that looked like and come back with it again
against the Bobcats. It's really as simple as that."
資料來源
http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0201hawks.html
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