Take a gooooood look:

The Hawks moved into first place in the Southeast tonight, with a 92-89 win over the Blazers. Atlanta is now a half game ahead of Orlando and second behind the Bulls in the Eastern Conference. Next up? Bring on the Sixers! The Hawks head to Philly for a Friday night game.

Hawks small forward, Marvin Williams will not travel with the team for tonight and Wednesday’s games. Williams injured his left ankle during the team’s win over the Bulls Saturday night.

According to NBA.com writer, John Schuhmann:

Hawks say Marvin Williams is out for Mon @ NJN & Wed @ IND. Didn’t travel.

— John Schuhmann (@johnschuhmann) January 9, 2012

Williams was averaging 10.9 points and six rebounds per game before the injury.

The Hawks defeated the Bulls 109-94 last night, giving the team a 6-3 record on the season. The win brought a particular sense of satisfaction after the team lost to Chicago on Tuesday after letting a 17-point lead slip away.

Despite being mired in trade rumors, Josh Smith has performed well and led the team last night with 25 points and six blocks. Three other Hawks starters were in the double digits as well– Al Horford (14), Jeff Teague (12), Joe Johnson (17).

“We did a good team job on him defensively in crowding him, trapping him and showing him different looks,” Smith said of Bulls star Derrick Rose. ”We played sound defense on him.”

Rose was limited to just eight points on the night and did not play at all in the fourth quarter.

The victory is the team’s second in a row after Atlanta beat the Bobcats in overtime Friday night and brought Chicago’s six-game winning streak to an end.

Next Up: The Hawks will face the New Jersey Nets tomorrow night at the Prudential Center.

The Hawks led by as much as 17 with three minutes left in the third against the Bulls. And then it all slipped away.

Coach Larry Drew summed it up best:

“We stopped defending with the intensity that we did in the first three quarters,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “We didn’t make our free throws going down the stretch. If you don’t make your free throws on the road you can’t expect to win.”

The Hawks shot 56 percent from the line (14-for-25) compared to the Bulls’ 77 percent (20-for-26).

The Hawks return to Atlanta from a three-game road trip to take on the Heat tomorrow night.

In keeping with their trend of adding veteran faces to the bench, the Hawks signed 7-year veteran guard Jannero Pargo yesterday according to GM Rick Sund. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pargo didn’t appear in a game with the Bulls last season, but played in 63 during the 2009-10 season. He averaged 5.5 points-per-game and 13.2 minutes-per-game.

Pargo joins Tracy McGrady and Vladimir Radmanovic as off-season veteran additions. Combined, the three have 32 years of experience under their belts (15 for McGrady, 10 for Radmanovic and 7 for Pargo)… aaand 49 average minutes-per-game in their last full regular seasons (23 for McGrady, 16 for Radmanovic and 13 for Pargo).

The Hawks will take on the Bobcats tomorrow night in a rematch of Monday night’s preseason 79-77 loss.

Photo Credit: Hector Alejandro

Hawks stars Joe Johnson and Al Horford were among the nine NBA players who kicked off the Hoops for Troops USO Tour on Monday. The players met with several thousand military members and their families at Schofield Barracks, an Army base in Oahu, Hawaii. They also visited injured servicemen and signed autographs and took pictures with soldiers and their families.

The USO, United Service Organization, is a private, non-profit organization that provides moral support, entertainment and recreational services to members of the U.S. military and family members.

Other players on the tour included league MVP, Derrick Rose (Bulls), D.J. Agustin (Bobcats), Tyreke Evans (Kings), Brook Lopez (Nets), Robin Lopez (Suns), JaValee McGee (Wizards), and Mike Miller (Heat).

The tour will last one week and include basketball games at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman and Schofield.

The Hawks’ 2007 first-round draft pick, Acie Law, is headed overseas. Yesterday, it was reported that Law signed a one-year deal with the Serbian team Partizan for $500,000.

Unlike decisions to play abroad by many NBA stars, Law’s recent deal is less a consequence of the pending lockout situation. Despite an impressive college career with Texas A&M, the point guard struggled to find his place in the NBA. Law played for 5 teams (Hawks, Warriors, Bobcats, Bulls, Grizzlies) in 4 years and never averaged more than 16 minutes-per-game or 7 points-per-game in any season. His agreement does not include a clause that would allow him to return to the NBA if the lockout were to end before his contract was up.

Sound risky? It might not be. Despite a brief surge of earnest negotiating at the onset, the NBA lockout has since been “weirdly quiet” according to Derek Fisher, president of the NBPA. A real sense of urgency appears to be lacking. But tomorrow represents the one-month mark of the lockout, and players and owners will officially resume negotiations in New York this week. So let’s just hope the current air of indifference is really just the quiet before the storm…

Scottie Pippen got in a lot of trouble a few weeks ago for making the ludicrous statement that LeBron might be better than Michael Jordan. And by “a lot of trouble,” I mean the over-sensationalized, melodramatic, yell-about-it-on-PTI kind of trouble from the media. How dare he compare an indecisive, disloyal, cocky 26-year-old to a 6-time champion, 5-time MVP and 14-time All-Star?

I’ll admit, the devil’s advocate in me impulsively jumped to defend Pippen. Not that I originally thought LeBron was better than MJ necessarily; I just thought it was a case of “too soon to tell” and a little unfair to immediately bash Scottie. I was all, “How can you really compare two players when one is still in the league and has likely 10+ years left in him? Who’s to say that LeBron won’t one day win more rings and MVP awards? Who’s to say that he’s reached his full potential? What’s your basis for comparison anyways?”

Then I actually thought about it. I read Joe Posnanski’s “Point After” piece on it in this week’s Sports Illustrated. As a high school kid in North Carolina, Joe idolized and emulated MJ when he played at UNC. He bought the shoes and has personal tug-at-the-heartstrings memories of Jordan’s glory days. LeBron doesn’t have the MVP awards (and probably won’t if he stays in Miami with Wade and Bosh) and the championship rings.

But more than that, LeBron doesn’t bring the competitive intensity MJ had. He doesn’t have the heart. The “chip-on-your-shoulder” attitude. (And this was evident even before his Game 4 8-point performance.) LeBron didn’t have to. He was blessed with natural athleticism. Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Told that he was too weak, not cut out for it, would never make it. And that instilled in MJ a unique kind of stick-to-itiveness that eventually led him to greatness.

LeBron will have his moments. He’ll make incredible plays MJ was never physically capable of and he’ll win all kinds of awards. But when push comes to shove, he won’t show the same level of determination as MJ. He won’t push through in the face of adversity.

And so I’ve finally come around to the mainstream view: MJ > LeBron for sure. But not because of the rings or number of points or rebounds he had. MJ didn’t have LeBron’s natural talent to rely on. And the fierce intensity this bred will always make MJ greater than LeBron in my mind. Even if LeBron wins 7 championships, 6 MVPs and goes to the All-Star game 15 times.

Hawks players on why they lost to the Bulls:

Horford: “They were more solid, more consistent.”

Smith: “They know their roles. They fit together so well.”

Jamal Crawford: “They play hard every second.”

Hawks GM Rick Sund on the season overall:

“We had a chance to go from good to great and we fell short. We made some progress, but we didn’t finish it.”

AJC writer Mark Bradley on potential off-season trades:

“Horford is too solid to trade and Johnson too expensive, and nobody wants Williams. (And Crawford is no lock to be re-upped as a free agent. The Hawks are perilously close to the luxury tax.) By process of elimination, that leaves Smith.”

Myself? Sadly lamenting the fact that this will likely be the last post I’ll be able to put in the “NBA Playoffs” category for a while…

Aaand t-minus about 170 days until next season. The Hawks saw their season come to an abrupt end tonight in a 93-73 loss to the Bulls in Game 6. The Bulls will head back to Chicago and take on Miami in the Eastern Conference finals, and the Hawks will head back to their homes after yet another 40-plus win season followed by an unsuccessful run in the playoffs. Well, at least each year we get a little further, after losing in Round 1 in 2008 and being swept in Round 2 in 2009 and 2010. At this rate, I’m thinking 2018 will be our year.

In any case, 2011 wasn’t the year, and tonight definitely was not the night.

The Hawks couldn’t crack through the Bulls’ tough defense all night. Atlanta struggled to score 20 points in any quarter– they final managed exactly 20 in the fourth– and were 27-for-74 (37%) on the night. Jeff Teague, who had been the Hawks’ go-to guy throughout this series, took an injury to the wrist in the first quarter and had only 4 points. Only Josh Smith and Joe Johnson were in double digits (18 and 19 points, respectively).

And for the Bulls, it was not just The Derrick Rose show for once, and the Hawks couldn’t step it up to match. In fact, for the first time in the series, the Rose was not the leading scorer but instead it was Carlos Boozer’s 23 that led the team. Rose finished the night with 19 points and 12 assists.

Surprisingly the two teams were dead even in rebounds at 35 apiece. But the Hawks couldn’t buy an open look tonight and had only 14 assists compared to the Bulls’ 34.

2018. Just you wait.