Hawks lack pieces for board games By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/12/06 Sacramento — With every passing second in Friday night's loss in Seattle, it became more and more clear that the Hawks would be unable to win the rebounding battle against the SuperSonics in a 99-91 loss. Don't think for a minute that the Hawks didn't work at it, because they did. They were simply unable to match the length and fury of the Sonics inside. Nick Collison (15) and Robert Swift (13) crashed the boards relentlessly, giving the Sonics a decided edge late in a game that could have gone either way. But when Collison has nearly as many rebounds as the entire Atlanta bench (16) and he and Swift combine for more than the Hawks' entire starting unit (28 to 21), it allows one team a significant amount of leeway in how the other three or four players are allowed to attack the game. And you better believe that every team the Hawks (15-33) face the rest of the season — and especially on the rest of this current Western Conference road swing, with pit stops at Arco Arena today against the Sacramento Kings — is paying attention to those details. "If they're watching film like I know we do, they're noticing that one of our weaknesses as of late has been our struggles on the boards," said Hawks co-captain Al Harrington, who struggled as much as anyone against the Sonics, grabbing two rebounds to go along with his 26 points in nearly 32 minutes of play. "It's something that we — and I'm talking about each and every one of us — has to consciously try and fix within our own games to make sure it doesn't happen again. "Because if we get outrebounded by 10 or 12 every night against these teams that are always bigger than us inside, we'll eliminate any chance we have of winning games late. Once again, we beat ourselves instead of making the other team really work to beat us." The Hawks' major problem is that they're playing with an undersized unit up front. Starting center Zaza Pachulia, who scrapped for eight rebounds against the Sonics, often was left alone to battle Seattle's big men for rebounds. Rookie Marvin Williams grabbed nine off the bench, all on the defensive end, and Joe Johnson added six. But other than Pachulia's five offensive boards and three from Josh Childress off the bench, the Hawks were unable to clean up many of their own errant shots while the Sonics grabbed 16 offensive rebounds and rolled to a dominating 25-8 advantage in second-chance points. "If you look at it, that was the game right there," said Hawks forward Josh Smith, usually one of the team's most active rebounders. But Smith managed only three in his 22 minutes, his rebounding no doubt related to his 1-for-7 shooting performance. "You'll beat yourself on any given night by allowing the other team to smack you around inside and beat your brains out on the glass," Johnson said. "Since we're not as big as most of the teams we're going to play, we have to make up for it with our effort, and it just wasn't there. We can't just put it on the big men. "We have to rebound better as a team to help ease some of the pressure on them, because there are going to be times when we go up against a team that's just bigger and better equipped to go to work on the boards than we are." 资料来源 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0212hawks.html --

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