Defense may be best cure if star having off night
The worst kept secret on game night at Philips Arena is that All-Star and leading scorer Joe Johnson is the Hawks' No. 1 offensive option.
In fact, Johnson is usually the first, second and third options for a Hawks team that has been short on accomplished scorers the past two years.
So what's Plan B, for those nights when Johnson's shots aren't falling or the defensive scheme designed to stop him is working?
"That's a great question," forward and second-leading scorer Josh Smith said after practice Monday. "Individually, I guess you could say it's me or [third-leading scorer] Marvin [Williams]. But basically, we try to improvise out there. We have counter plays for everything we run. But for the most part, if Joe's not getting shots or not making shots, we try and get the ball around the horn and find the best open shot we can.
"We're only working with 24 seconds out there, so it's not like you've got all day to analyze the situation and come up with all these other things to do."
"Everybody else has to step up," Woodson said when asked for Plan B. "And I thought they did that the other night. If we score 107 points and Joe goes 4-for-16 from the floor and we still have a chance to win, I can live with that. Right now he's just not making some shots he normally makes, so we just have to get him back on the board.
"To me, we struggled as a unit in the three road games we lost during this stretch. What you can't do is compound that by blowing your defensive assignments, too. Normally, when we struggle to score, our defense holds us in there and gives us a chance to win."
That didn't happen against the Nets. After reviewing film from the game before Sunday's practice, Woodson said he and his staff charted 30 points the Nets scored from botched defensive assignments.
"You don't give yourself a chance to win when you do that," Woodson said. "We've got to clean that up and then figure out our offense."
The operative word in that sentence is "our." Smith said Johnson's struggles are the team's struggles, and it's up to the rest of the Hawks to help pull the team through these tough times.
"It's no secret that 90 percent of the plays are going to involve Joe," said Smith, who led the Hawks with 34 points in the loss to the Nets. "But if that's not working, we've got to take the pressure off of him. We've got to keep him confident and make sure he remains confident in us to make something happen or knock down shots when we need them.
"I think we are all to the point now where we're more than capable of handling some of that load. So we just need to make sure he knows he can lean on us when he needs to."
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