Woodson's edict: defense or bench By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 03/19/06 As far as messages go, Hawks coach Mike Woodson couldn't be more direct than he was after his team suffered its fourth consecutive loss Friday night to Utah. He gave his players two options but one real choice: Commit to playing defense the way they've been coached all season and stay on the floor, or choose not to make that commitment and risk spending the rest of the season on the bench. That philosophy will be on full display Sunday afternoon when the Hawks host former Southwest Atlanta Christian star Dwight Howard and his Orlando Magic teammates. "Maybe we do need that kind of discipline on the defensive end," Hawks co-captain Joe Johnson said. "It's not right for guys to waltz through the lane on our end, and then we're picking ourselves up off the floor on their end every trip down the court. I think Coach makes a valid point. We all have to take a look at ourselves and really take a stand and come to work for these last 19 games ready to go a lot harder on the defensive end." The Hawks haven't had any problems scoring, having topped the 100-point mark in each of their past two losses. Stopping the opposition has been the issue. The Knicks plowed through the Hawks' interior defense for 60 points on their way to a 121-117 double-overtime win Wednesday night in New York. And the Jazz scored 54 points in the paint Friday night en route to a 111-101 win. "The last two have been carbon-copy games," Woodson said. "We gave up 25 layups, I think it was, in the Knicks game, and I bet we gave up 25 or 30 [against the Jazz]. You wonder how you're even in the game. We scored enough points, but we're not making the commitment on the other end, and that's what's getting us beat. "When you give up so many layups to teams, it just takes the starch out of you defensively. I don't care who you play, you're not going to beat anybody giving up that many layups." Playing well enough to stay in games but not well enough to win them, Woodson said, is a nightmare scenario for a team that for weeks had shown tremendous growth from the 2-16 start that marked this season. When they were in the midst of a 5-for-5 stretch prior to this four-game slide, the Hawks were playing hard for 48 minutes on both ends of the floor. That balance has disappeared as the Hawks' scoring has spiked. "We get caught up in that matrix sometimes," Al Harrington said. "There are times when we're struggling on offense and we buckle down on defense to get ourselves going, and then sometimes we're scoring the ball so easily that we tend to get a little lackadaisical on defense. "That's not just us; that's everybody. But as a leader of this team, I have to take it upon myself to step it up on defense and make sure we're all doing what we have to do to improve and get things back under control." Woodson's plan to shuffle bodies in and out of games based on their commitment level on defense appears to be the only other recourse. "We can't go on playing defense the way we have, and we certainly can't continue this losing," Johnson said. 原文转载 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0319hawks.html --

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