Another A-town beatdown, Hawks 106, Heat 91

There's been a lot said about Atlanta Hawks' Josh Smith's missed show-off under-the-leg dunk attempt late in the fourth quarter of Wednesday's night's game.

What I'm wondering is why no one's talking about why the Miami Heat didn't show up in the first place. Why do you, as a playoff team, have to wait until someone embarrasses you with a 106-91 beatdown before you show up to the playoffs?

Game 5 was as crucial to the Heat to win as Game 4 was to the Hawks to win in Miami. By winning Game 4, the Hawks regained homecourt advantage and, as evidenced by Josh Smith, you know what Atlanta can do on the home court.

This game was awesome. Sprit the Hawk was in the house. Jerious Norwood was in the house. Atlanta made play after play and the Heat players just stood there like they thought they still had home court advantage. Seeing Josh Smith jam the ball is worth the price of admission.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson always says a playoff series is about adjustments. I feel pretty good about the way the Hawks have adjusted the last two games to cutting off easy 3-point shots by the Heat.

Miami has the league's best scorer, Dwayne Wade. But even at 27, he looks like an old man on the court, hampered by back problems and not very mobile. The Heat has another weapon in Jermaine O'Neal. Usually a third player will put up some points.

But it doesn't seem like it's enough. So they're resorting to getting up for the game by how they were humiliated by the Hawks yesterday.

I think the Hawks will get up for Friday's game as well.

Why? They know that they can beat Miami on their own floor. And have the weapons to do it.

And if they don't? Well, there's always Game 7, the reason why the Hawks worked so hard to beat a .500 record and have home court.

The late nite mobneys

No wonder a cat couldn't sleep. There was money to be had.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 108612

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



SB: $75.95

Hero (BB): $110.20

UTG: $13.10

CO: $231.65

BTN: $100.00



Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with K K

UTG calls $1, 1 fold, BTN raises to $4.50, 1 fold, Hero raises to $16, 1 fold, BTN calls $11.50



Flop: ($33.50) 3 T 5 (2 players)

Hero bets $30, BTN raises to $84 all in, Hero calls $54



Turn: ($201.50) 9 (2 players - 1 is all in)



River: ($201.50) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)



Final Pot: $201.50

Hero shows K K (a pair of Kings)

BTN shows Q Q (a pair of Queens)

Hero wins $198.50

(Rake: $3.00)

When the numbers bite you in the a** (Braves 2, Cardinals 1)

I'd never seen anything so cowardly as tonight's Cardinals-Braves game. It can be hinted at with Chipper Jones line for the night:

BB, BB, BB, BB.

These walks were not the intentional kind where the catcher steps away from the box but you could tell the Cardinals were not trying to pitch to last year's NL hitting title winner.

So when Chipper Jones stepped up to the batter's box at the bottom of the 8th with just one out and Omar Infante at second, you'd think there would be some kind of attempt to get him out or at least an intentional walk.

No, just the chip, chip, chip cowardly balls.

They struck out Casey Kotchman even though he can be dangerous because he was already 0 for 3.

So with two outs and even though Jeff Francoeur also was 0 for 3, you could almost see the wheels start to spin in the minds of the Cardinals brain trust. He's hitting upwards of .380, but right after him is Matt Diaz who is only like .233.

So the Cards do the subtle walk of Francouer, loading the bases. And then they set to work on Diaz. Foul, foul, foul.

And then he breaks the game open with a 2 RBI single to center.

That basically was the game and props to Mike "The Cobra" Gonzalez for striking out the deep part of the Cards' order, including Albert Pujols after the count was 3-0.

Everybody did their part. Starting pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes had 7 strikes, Peter Moylan looked like a closer.

Someone should tell the Cards that sports bettors consider a base to be roughly a quarter of a point.

Chipper's four walks equaled 1 run.

And that was the game.

HOTD

Full Tilt, NL.50/1, 6-max:

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 Pot Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 105320

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter



Hero (UTG): $102.50

MP: $34.50

CO: $106.80

BTN: $103.50

SB: $31.60

BB: $55.75



Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with J J

Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, BTN calls $3.50, 1 fold, BB calls $2.50



Flop: ($11.00) 8 J T (3 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $10, BTN raises to $41, BB folds, Hero raises to $99 all in, BTN calls $58



Turn: ($209.00) A (2 players - 1 is all in)



River: ($209.00) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)



Final Pot: $209.00

Hero shows J J (three of a kind, Jacks)

BTN shows 8 8 (three of a kind, Eights)

Hero wins $206.00

(Rake: $3.00)

Oh, freebird (Heat 108, Hawks 93)

There have been kitty omens at Citi Field and Wrigley Field. The Atlanta Hawks had one of their own in Wednesday night's playoff game against the Miami Heat.

Early in the 1st quarter, the Spirit of the Hawks somehow got loose and started flying around the Hawks' hoop, eventually settling on top of the TV camera above the backboard and on the backboard. It took a few laps above the halfcourt.

Amazingly, they didn't initially stop play. One of the refs even tossed the ball against the backboard trying to jar the bird loose, prompting Miami's Jermaine O'Neal to wrap up the ref to prevent him from doing it again.

Finally the hawk flew to its master.

But it created a strange omen for the game. Miami's Dwayne Wade couldn't miss, especially as he started jacking it up from behind the 3-point line and making it play after play.

I long for the old days of the NBA when that would have amounted to showing up the other team and -- whoops -- hard foul and your ass is on the floor.

I wonder if Wade was injured and was opting to just shoot perimeter shots. He didn't seem very mobile and spent much of the game just standing around. This may be an interesting series.

Live by the perimeter shot (ala Duke), die by the perimeter shot. If that's the best Miami has, then the Hawks should have no problem the rest of the series.

The Hawks have themselves to blame for an 18-point first quarter. In the playoffs, this is usually the death of the low-scoring team.

We'll see if the Hawks can take a game from the Heat this weekend. We know they've done it before in the regular season.

But oh, freebird. We could have used a second win at home to pretty much drive in the dagger in the series.

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An A-town massacre (Hawks 90, Heat 64)

I went to the game yesterday not really knowing what to expect. Game 1 had a true playoff atmosphere, with rapper T.I. doing the player introductions and Ted Turner sitting courtside with a pretty blonde.

You could tell Joe Johnson wanted this game, with a matchup against "superstar" Dwayne Wade. The Heat seemed determined to say they could win the game by not having Wade (19 points) score and all you saw was brick, brick, brick.

The score at the half was Hawks by 20. And they never relinquished that lead, ending up by 26 (Hawks 90, Heat 64).

And meanwhile Josh Smith was putting exclamation point after another with an array of reverse dunks, one-handed putback jams, a power dunk at transition.

This one didn't have the rivalry gravitas of the Celtics-Bulls game but I was totally glad I was there.

Go Hawks!

Poker in the air

ABOARD DELTA AIR LINES FLIGHT 1943 -- I'm using the inflight wi-fi, which is pretty cool. It costs $9.95 for a flight under 3 hours and I have a 20 percent coupon code that I'll add here later.

Everything is super-fast. Pretty good connection on Full Tilt.

I don't have much minutes left on my laptop battery, however. I'm hoping that I can steal some blinds at Full Tilt NL$1/2 6-max to make up the price of the service.

Rocks!

Scouting the enemy (Cubs 8, Cardinals 7)

CHICAGO -- Really good game today. Two Braves enemies, the Cards and Cubs (although only one arch-enemy).

Carlos Zambrano was ridiculously dominant in the first two innings, then the Cubs offense seemed to do him a disservice -- they went for a while against P.J. Walters (called up to replace Chris Carpenter on the DL) in the second inning and the extra time looked like it made Zambrano stiff.

Zambrano gave up consecutive hits to Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick, who hit a 3-run shot to take the lead. IMO only but after that, Zambrano didn't look like he was mentally in the game. I saw waaayyy more ground balls in the dirt from him than the Cubs ace should be throwing.

For the poor Braves, both the Cubs and Cards are obviously scary because of the offense they are able to put up. Maybe when the Cards come the Braves will be able to take advantage of their bullpen. Trever Miller didn't look very sharp and Mitchell Boggs was good for one inning, but not two.

If anything, Walters was more impressive after he gave up 60 pitches and three runs in the first two innings. He settled down and ended up striking out 7 through four innings.

But the 60-pitch start caused the Cards to go to their bullpen in the fifth inning, which wasn't good.

HOTD

Love it when they miss.

Full Tilt, NL.50/1

Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 4: renatojd ($24.90)
Seat 6: roots2000 ($23.25) -
Seat 7: gtech1823 ($58.15) -
Seat 9: kurokitty ($100) -


PRE-FLOP:

gtech1823 posts small blind $0.50
kurokitty posts BIG blind $1
Dealt To: kurokitty


RAISE renatojd ($2)
RAISE roots2000 ($3)
FOLD gtech1823
RAISE kurokitty ($11.50)
RAISE renatojd ($24.90)
CALL roots2000 ($20.25)
CALL kurokitty ($13.40)


FLOP:

Pot: $73.55
   



TURN:

Pot: $73.55
     



RIVER:

Pot: $73.55
      



SHOWDOWN:
renatojd:

roots2000:

kurokitty:


kurokitty collected $3.3 from side pot 1 with two pair, Kings and Eightskurokitty collected $68.25 from main pot with two pair, Kings and Eights

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $73Main pot: $70
Side pot: $3
Rake: $2

Final Board:
     

Seat 4: renatojd showed [Th Tc] and lost with two pair, Tens and Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($-24.9)
  
Seat 6: roots2000 button showed [9c 9d] and lost with two pair, Nines and Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($-23.25)
  
Seat 7: gtech1823 small blind folded before the Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)
Seat 9: kurokitty big blind showed [Ks Kc] and won 71.55 with two pair, Kings and Eights - Net Gain/Loss: ($46.65)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners