As the minutes continue to pile up for his starters, Hawks coach Mike Woodson said Tuesday that it's time to start watching more closely how that in-game wear-and-tear impacts his team. Joe Johnson is averaging 41.1 minutes, Marvin Williams 36.1, Josh Smith 36.0, Al Horford 31.0 and Anthony Johnson 28.0. "You have to look at guys and see what they're doing out there late in games and figure it has to be fatigue," Woodson said. "Because we're making so many mental mistakes right now."The majority of the mental mistakes I see being made late in games are by the guy who's averaging 48 minutes a night as head coach. If Josh Smith's too fatigued to get back on defense against Portland, take him out of the damn game. That's the one part of the roster where the Hawks have some depth.
It isn't a fatigued player that calls "Joe Johnson dribbles around the perimeter against five defenders while his four teammates (at least two of whom can't make jump shots should they ever receive the ball here) stand around watching" ever chance he gets in the last four minutes of games until the Hawks finally lose.
To this point I've cut Woodson some slack about this team's lack of depth. (Not that he can sort through the relatively few useful options he has and deploy them optimally.) If he starts using that as an excuse for his own limitations and failings as a head coach, I'll stop being so fair.
1 comment:
The team has clearly quit on Woodson, so he has to go and now even if it's not entirely his fault.
Post a Comment