Streak runs out of gas on the road By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/05/06 Washington — The Hawks' drive for four consecutive wins ran into a familiar roadblock Saturday night at MCI Center. It was mostly the Washington Wizards, who built a 25-point lead before holding on for a closer-than-it-looks 98-85 win. But there were other demons at work, you see, the same two-headed monster that has stayed a step behind the Hawks (14-32) all season — shaky starts and carelessness with the basketball. The Hawks fell behind by 10 in the first quarter, turned the ball over 11 times before halftime and had to expend a ton of energy just to get back into the game in the third quarter. Not even a season-high 45 free-throw attempts worked in their favor, because when the Hawks needed them most they couldn't convert, missing eight in the fourth quarter and 13 overall. The Hawks' 19 turnovers, most of them unforced errors, morphed into 16 points for the Wizards, who needed little help with Antawn Jamison (game-high 27 points and 15 rebounds), Gilbert Arenas (22) and Caron Butler (18 points, seven rebounds) all playing at a high level. "We had our chances, but we just ran out of gas," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "We had some uncharacteristic things happen with guys on the line who are normally good free throw shooters missing. "Our bigger struggle is playing on back-to-back nights. We have to find a way to get better energy, and that might mean getting some fresh meat in there earlier. But I've got to find a way to fix that." The Hawks had one of their best wins of the season at Philips Arena Friday night, beating Orlando 96-94 on Joe Johnson's jumper with seventh-tenths of a second to play. Johnson (16 points) and Zaza Pachulia (13 points) were the only Hawks starters to reach double figures Saturday night. Josh Smith was 0-for-5 from the floor and Al Harrington was 4-for-16. They had 11 and 10 rebounds, respectively, but it was the absence of offense from both that played a major factor in the way the night went for the Hawks. "You got to give our bench credit," Johnson said. "They played great basketball to get us back in it. We just didn't have the energy at the end to finish the comeback. But we can't blame the fatigue or the back-to-back. We've just got to find ways to overcome all that." That third-quarter rally was definitely one of the Hawks' better stretches, particularly when you consider that it was the bench doing the damage. A 66-41 deficit with six minutes to play was whittled to 75-69 with 35.9 seconds left in the third. The Hawks made just eight of their 18 shots from the floor during the quarter and shot a putrid 24-for-72 for the game. But they went 19-for-23 from the free throw line, outrebounded the Wizards 12-8 and turned the ball over just twice. Tyronn Lue, Marvin Williams, Josh Childress, Esteban Batista and Salim Stoudamire combined for all but 11 of the Hawks' 38 points in the quarter, a season-high. But the closest the Hawks got was five, 78-73, after a jumper from Lue with 11:34 to play in the fourth quarter. "We got down early and we got back, and once again it was the little things, the free throws, that didn't allow us to get all the way over the hump," Harrington said. "We wanted it bad, knowing we could get four straight. But we just didn't have it. "But we'll be back. We'll just have to work to start another streak and get back to this point again and finish the job." 資料來源 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0205hawks.html --

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