Stoudamire's missed chance costs dearly Rookie guard replays might-have-beens By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 03/07/06 Salim Stoudamire knew he'd waited too long. So there the Hawks rookie sat, with ice packs on his knees and his hand on his chin, minutes after misfiring on three late jumpers in Saturday night's spirit-crunching loss to the Miami Heat. The Hawks couldn't hold a 17-point third-quarter lead and lost 95-93 on Alonzo Mourning's dunk with 1.8 seconds to play. "I should have shot it right away," Stoudamire said, staring off into space while rethinking his final shot, a contested 24-footer at the buzzer that never actually made it to the rim. "Next time I won't hesitate." A split-second's hesitation on several crucial plays, on both ends off the floor, cost the Hawks in their latest defeat that should have been a win. It's a common theme for a 19-39 team that can count as few as eight losses and as many as a dozen, depending on your perspective, which could have gone the other way. Stoudamire and the Hawks get a chance for redemption tonight against Golden State at Philips Arena. There was a silver lining in their most recent late-game disintegration, a lesson that Hawks co-captain Joe Johnson said has to be learned the hard way. "Sometimes guys want to be in that situation, with the ball in their hands and the game on the line," said Johnson, the author of several game-tying and game-winning shots this season. "But until you're in that position, you don't know how you're going to respond. Sometimes you have to be there and play it out to realize what it's like. "You have to live with the outcome. Sometimes you're the hero and sometimes you're the goat, so I know how Salim must have felt after the game. I started second-guessing myself, too. Maybe I should have taken this shot or that shot. But if you want to be the guy with the ball in your hand, you have to deal with it." Stoudamire was that guy plenty in college, rescuing Arizona many times during his illustrious pre-NBA career. Who says you can't learn from your own mistakes? "You've got to be willing to step up and make plays," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "That's kind of why you have to be careful what you wish for sometimes. Guys can get focused on playing 20 or 30 minutes or taking 10 shots or whatever the case may be. "And it's not about that. It's about whatever minutes you're in, you have to make the most of them. I think with young guys, until you put them in a position to understand that, they're going to be on the roller-coaster. They're mind isn't zoned in on what's at hand. They're thinking about, 'I missed those last two shots, and now I need to get another one.' "But that's the learning process we're going through, and that's the process we have to go through until we learn to master situations at the end of games." Notes: Reserve forward Josh Childress will miss his second straight game tonight, resting his sprained left ankle. He's expected to return for Saturday night's game against Chicago. ... Second-year swingman Donta Smith is expected to be back in a Hawks uniform tonight for the first time since early December, when he was assigned to the team's NBDL affiliate in Little Rock. Woodson said there's a "possibility" Smith could be used off the bench in place of Childress. 資料來源 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0307hawks.html --

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