Larry Drew sticking with Lou Williams as starter

Hawks coach Larry Drew will keep Lou Williams in the starting lineup for Atlanta's game against the Detroit Pistons on Friday night. Because of the way Williams has been playing as the starter, Williams may remain in that role for the foreseeable future.

Drew went to Williams out of necessity back on Dec. 22 against the Chicago Bulls thanks in part to a foot injury to Devin Harris, who Harris has remained out of the lineup with the injury.

Williams has more than picked up the slack as the starter. The guard has averaged 14.4 points, 6.4 assists and 3.4 rebounds in the starting role, and Atlanta has gone 5-1 since the move.

Drew said on Thursday that there's no reason to change up the starting lineup now with things working so well (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

"A couple of games I've thought about going back to a bigger lineup but sometimes, as I've said in the past, you've got to roll the dice a little bit - whether you adjust to the opposition or you force the opposition to adjust to you," Drew said. "Clearly, our last few games if there is an adjustment to be made it's going to be on their end. I'm going to stay with what's been working for us. He's been good in our lineup and I'm going to keep it that way."

The bigger lineup Drew mentions would likely include Kyle Korver at shooting guard and DeShawn Stevenson at small forward, but the 6'1 Williams' scoring and playmaking ability has helped negate some of his deficiencies on the defensive end.