Posted by:
Micah Hart on
February 26, 2007 at
5:24PM EST
Last night's loss to Phoenix was a tough one, because the Hawks really played quite well in defeat. Tonight they take on the other title favorite, the Dallas Mavericks, in another game that will require the team's absolute best effort to come away victorious.
In playing the Suns and Mavs on back-to-back nights, the Hawks become only the second team to have to run that gauntlet this season. Houston played the two on consecutive nights back in mid-January, losing both. It's very, very possible that will happen to Atlanta as well, as Dallas is currently on an 11-game winning streak and is 46-5 since starting the season 0-4.
To win tonight, the team will have to get a great performance from
Joe Johnson - there is just no other way it's going to happen.
I am not knocking Joe by any means - some days you have the touch, and some days you don't. Most days, Joe has it. Yesterday, unfortunately, he didn't, and because of that we fell just shy of a major, major win. Three or four times against the Suns we got the ball to Joe for a wide-open shot that would have taken the lead or tied it up, and it just never fell. What can you do? It happens.
The Hawks video staff put together a
little montage of highlights
from yesterday's game if you care to check them out. For those who didn't make it, it really was one of the most entertaining games we've seen at Philips this year.
Check it out!
To win tonight, we basically just need to play like we did yesterday, but have Joe shoot better. Fortunately, the Mavs don't have a 7-foot inside dominator like
Amare Stoudemire. Unfortunately, they do have a 7-foot perimeter dominator in
Dirk Nowitzki, so we can't exactly breathe a sigh of relief.
Either way it goes down tonight, I am just hoping for good effort, and hopefully, if just a few (ok, maybe several) things go our way, maybe we can shock the world.
Tune in tonight on FSN South at 8:30 ET to catch all the action!
