Rockets 108 Hawks 89

Boxscore

Gameflow

If you play badly enough there's no chance that the coach's tactical limitations get criticized.

Sekou Smith saw it as a contrast in styles the Hawks couldn't overcome:

Styles make fights in boxing.

In basketball, they usually end them.

And the Hawks' undersized but scrappy approach was absolutely no match for the Houston Rockets' brute force Saturday night.

If the Hawks have a scrappy approach, they're the scrappiest bunch of guys (Al Horford excepted) who don't give a damn about defensive rebounding. Marvin Williams, especially, needs to add a commitment to the defensive glass to his game. Right now, anything he does other than shoot spot up jump shots adversely impacts the team.

I checked out with 2:19 left in the third quarter. Even I'm not sick enough to watch Shelden Williams themed garbage time on a Saturday night. Until Tuesday night's reminder of how hopeless a playoff series against Detroit figures to be, I'll try to forget that I wrote this on Thursday morning. Commenter Ron was far sharper than I that day.