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." 资料来源 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0201hawks.html --

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