Quotes, Notes, and Links: Hawks 116 Bulls 92

Gameflow

Highlights

Mike Woodson:

"We didn’t lose our composure. That’s a good sign after we played an overtime game last night. Back-to-backs are tough, especially on the road."

Woodson on Marvin Williams:

"This was kind of a breakthrough game for him."

Could be. A breakthrough would be more likely than a one-off if Williams continues to get the nod over Mike Bibby in fourth quarters.

HawkStr8Talk remains skeptical:

Marvin Williams needs to do what he did vs. the Bulls in a game that matters vs. players who aren't woefully mismatched to make me rescind my belief that the Hawks should start Mo Evans. Yeah, 18 and 9 are nice, but can you make Larry Bird-esque behind the backboard shots...Mo can!

Josh Smith:

"They didn’t really have a lot of guys that can rebound except for Taj Gibson. So we felt like we could be aggressive on the boards."

Josh Smith as motivational speaker:

"[Jamal Crawford]’s an extremely good shooter. I do the same thing with Bibby and Joe Johnson. He can’t get down on himself. When you have a teammate behind you telling you to keep shooting, it gives you confidence."

Crawford on Smith:

"He’s doing it all...blocking shots, rebounding, steals, assists. He’s a great teammate. He’s genuinely happy if he scores three points and we win."

Don't wins feel nice?

Mo Evans on his spectacular over-the-backboard, shot-clock-beating make:

"I am waiting on the whistle, waiting on the whistle and concentrating on the shot. But I don’t hear a whistle and I’m like, ‘OK.’"

The Human Highlight Blog on Mario West's spectacular dunk:

West authored a knee knocking cross over and then drove to the hoop. With little between him and the hoop, West took off in the air, leaning a bit towards the basket. With a large amount of authority, Flubber slammed the ball through the net, eliciting a large amount of "Oooohs" and "aaahhhhs" from the Chicago faithful (they must have been if they were still in the arena at that point).

The picture.

Vinny Del Negro:

"Atlanta is a very athletic, strong front line. They are young and they have hurt us before. Obviously, that was the difference in the game. They would miss and go get it and control the tempo of the game."

Chad Ford and John Hollinger's Future Power Rankings* (Insider) have the Hawks 13th in the league, up one spot from last year:

Atlanta has two powerful positives going forward -- 23-year-old frontcourt mates Josh Smith and Al Horford -- and some further potential in Marvin Williams and Jeff Teague. Atlanta also owns a valuable trade chip in the rights to Josh Childress.

*Each of the NBA's 30 teams received an overall Future Power Rating of 0 to 1,000, based on how well we expected each team to perform in the three seasons following this season.

To determine the Future Power Rating, we rated each team in five categories (Players, Management, Money, Market, and Draft).