The Hawks

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Tonight's visitors, the Atlanta Hawks (14-25), have developed into
somewhat of a big, bruising team featuring a frontline rotation (Wright,
Mutombo and Alan Henderson) that averages 27.5 boards, including over 9
offensive boards. The Celts rotation obviously needs to watch out there
and contribute. Despite a tall frontline and Mutombo's return to form
(13.9 boards, 2.32 blocks), the Hawks rank just 23rd in blocked shots.
But the Hawks have held opponents this season to an unsightly 42.9FG%,
so the Celtics will need to maintain their poise and be prepared to "win
ugly" in Obie's words.

Jason Terry has emerged in his second year --like Baron Davis-- from El
Busto-land into the clear go-to-guy on the Hawks roster: leading the
team with 17.7ppg to go with 5.1 apg. Terry and Davis have joined Steve
Francis and Andre Miller as franchise pointguards out of the 1999 draft.

The Hawks have a second playmaker in the backcourt in Brevin Knight,
averaging 5.3 assists and 1.64 steals per contest. Watch out for him
because he's coming off a career-high scoring game (31 points) along
with 10 assists against the Wiz. If not him, watch out for Jason Terry
who smoked the Celtics for 32 points in a 92-81 win earlier this month.
Henderson (13.4ppg) and Wright (12.8ppg) can also score for the Hawks.
Still, this isn't a great scoring team by any stretch, averaging just
87.1 ppg on just 17.2 apg.

Antoine Walker averaged 29.9 ppg, 10.5 apg and 8.8 boards over four
games to finish second to Chris Webber (30.8 points, 12.3 rebounds, 3.3
bpg) in Player of the Week voting. The last Celtic to win Player of the
Week honors was Reggie Lewis in 1992, according to the Boston Globe.

Let's hope the Celtics win big and take care of business at home. If
they blow it, the silver lining is that they'll move a full place up in
the draft lottery. Boston's next 11 opponents are spaced out really well
with no back-to-backs and some winnable games. Overall these won't be
easy games (Portland, Indiana, Milwaukee, Seattle, Phoenix etc.) so it
will be a real challenge to see if the Celts can climb back within two
or three losses of playoff contention before the West Coast trip.

The February and March schedule are hands down the two hardest months
you'll ever want to see in terms of quality of opponents. Relatively
speaking, it's been candy-from-a-baby up to now. If they keep playing
hard, I think many fans will stick with them even once the baseball
season starts. They really need to get everyone healthy though.

Go Celtics!

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