Atlanta Hawks

In the Houston Rockets, the Hawks found an opponent as willing to grind as they have been. In the end, it helped the Hawks' cause to have a headbanded dunking machine on their side.

Coming off the bench for the Rockets was center David Andersen , the Hawks' 2002 second-round draft pick whom the team traded in July to Houston for cash and a future second-round draft pick.

It almost sounded like a novel sensation for the coach. "I feel good about our bench," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said.

Question: Who is Houston’s leading scorer? (Answer below)

What’s up, folks?

Sorry to jump on so late today. I have to get cranking on a couple different things – a story about the Hawks’ second team for tomorrow and then a notes column for Sunday – so not much time today.

Hope you all are doing well.

A couple links: Sekou’s blog off of last night’s game.

Ken Berger’s column for CBS Sportsline. (I met Ken after the game last night at Manuel’s with AP writer Paul Newberry and former AJC staffer and now nba.com freelancer Matt Winkeljohn. Ken bought my Sprite, so kudos to Ken.)

Matt’s story for nba.com.

A little shout-out to the Hawks in Ball Don’t Lie.

A Fox Sports column by Charley Rosen.

The view from South Florida and the Sun-Sentinel.

Lastly, you can check out Al Horford on TNT tonight at 8 p.m. for the pregame with Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson.

Looking ahead

Mike Woodson’s take on the Rockets:

The fact that hey don’t have Yao (Ming), they have become …

What’s up, folks?

Another big one coming this evening with the two teams with the best record in the East taking the floor. Some gleanings to share

Worth noting:

1. This is just Miami’s third road game of the season, having played nine of their first 11 in Miami. The Heat has won both games on the road, at Indiana and Washington.

2. I’m always leery of “Player X does Y when Team Z wins” and not just because I don’t like algebra. It stands to reason when the team wins, a player’s numbers will be better. I guess causation is the issue. At any rate, one player to watch is Heat forward Michael Beasley. He’s actually scored more when they’ve lost, but been otherwise more productive when they’ve won.

In seven Heat wins: 6.1 rebounds, 1.3 steals, 1.3 assists 1.0 blocks.

In three Heat losses: 3.3 rebounds, 0 steals, 0.7 assists, .7 blocks.

3. Joe Johnson has had a nice two-game run distributing. It looked to me like he was trying to get other guys going early against Portland. He …

Greetings, all-

Hope you are well. As things sometimes go in my life, I was just about to post a new blog but I was messing around with it and it all disappeared. That’s how I roll. So this will probably be not quite as in-depth. Trust me, it was awesome. (I am being cynical.)

Anyway, I’ll give you some links and invite you to join in a contest.

Links

1) Sekou has started at nba.com and has his blog up.

2) nba.com’s new power rankings are up. The Hawks are in the top slot. For some of you guys who’ve been around, that must qualify as mind-boggling.

3) nba.com’s David Aldridge caught up with Billy Knight. Knight looks back on the Marvin Williams over Chris Paul draft – “Sure, if you had taken one of those guys, there could have been a whole domino effect of things that happened. But that’s not what happened.” – and gives his take on the Joe Johnson trade.

4) Interesting story in the Oregonian about Brandon Roy and Joe Johnson. (One matchup to watch, obviously. Another is Greg …