ATLANTA – Most of the Hawks’ depth is found in Dikembe Mutombo’s voice. Down 1-0 to the Knicks and facing the big test last night, he went to the testosterone.
“Yes, we will win the game tonight,” the big Atlanta center boomed yesterday morning. Hey, when your team is courting trouble, there’s not much use for the treble. The Hawks were determined to set a different tone last night, starting with baritone.
The Knicks had a great time Tuesday night looking in the funhouse mirror at the distorted reflection of the true Hawks. It shrunk Mutombo into Mudgsy Bogues. At any minute, you expected a Lenny Wilkens rap video to break out.
So Mutombo dug down a few octaves yesterday for another in his series of predictions.
“We have to find a way to stop [Latrell] Sprewell, slow the New York running game,” said Mutombo. “We didn’t shoot the ball very well, they got defensive rebounds and ran. We have to find a way to stop Sprewell. That’s a key to the New York game.”
The Hawks reached this revelation after watching the game tapes, which, presumably they had to put into slow motion to study. Those blurs turned out to be the Knicks. Asked for the key to changing the Atlanta fortunes, Wilkens said: “Play better defense. And that’s all that I’m telling you. The rest you have to watch for yourself tonight.”
Hey, you don’t get to be the winningest coach in NBA history without being able to put your finger on the pulse of the problem like that. Houston had 34 points and Sprewell 31 in the opener. If they went off again last night, the Hawks were going off the cliff.
The NBA’s fifth-best rebounding team got beat on the boards by eight in Game One. If that happened again, the track meet would resume, but only after the Knicks did a double take. They had every expectation that after a visit to the candy store in the opener, visits to the dentists would resume in Game 2.
“I really think the rest of the series will be more like what everybody thought coming in,” said Allan Houston.
The Hawks were bringing their screwdrivers with them last night, hoping the guy cast as the screw would not again be Steve Smith, their shooting guard who was in foul trouble the whole game. He still managed to get 25 points on 6-for-17 shooting, which tells you what the guy can do on a bad night, but not to Houston, Smith’s matchup who went off for 34.
“The coaches were not happy at all that he had to go to the bench, in the first part of the game and the third quarter, especially when we made that run,” said Mutombo. “The game was going our way. We were posting Steve and he got his fourth foul, that kind of [hurt] what we were doing out there. He’s our best shooter.
“Smitty got into foul trouble and [Houston and Sprewell] just ran on us. I can’t remember a game that a team scored 100 points against us, especially this year or the last two years.”
His memory was as short as his arms as Houston and Sprewell got to the basket at will. “Whenever you shoot like we did, there are going to be less rebounds,” said Jeff Van Gundy. “The [40-32 Knick advantage] is a little bit skewed because of our shooting.”
Also, because of the absence of Alan Henderson with a damaged left eye socket. “Henderson obviously is a very good offensive rebounder,” said Van Gundy. “But [Grant] Long has played very well for them.”
Not on Tuesday night, when the hero of Game 5 of the Detroit series had zero points to go with his seven rebounds. Last night the Hawks needed a lot more from Long, better shooting and shot selection by Mookie Blaylock, plus a more responsive rotation by Wilkens.
The Atlanta coach did not start the third quarter with Chris Crawford, who had shot Atlanta back into the game in the second quarter, and kept Blaylock on the bench when the Hawks were making a belated run.
“Why would I change things in the middle of a run?” asked Wilkens.
To give columnists less to second-guess, that’s why. Mutombo, meanwhile, had 13 rebounds and two blocks that exaggerated his impact on a game in which Patrick Ewing barely played because of foul trouble.
“I must help my teammates set the tone from the beginning,” said Mutombo.
The Hawks, with no bench, had to go deep a different way, ready to rumble like the rumble in their big man’s throat.
“I have business to do,” said Mutombo, and it was urgent, or this series would be over for Atlanta almost before it began.
