Hawks let another late lead slip away By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/22/06 The scenario is one the Hawks are terribly familiar with at this late stage of the season. Minutes left in a tight game and you either make the plays to win it or watch the other team make them and leave the floor a winner. That's the way things played out Wednesday night at Philips Arena between the Hawks and Seattle. With the game tied at 101-101 and four minutes to play, the SuperSonics made plays that the Hawks could not and left the building with a 114-109 win. The Sonics, losers of eight of nine games before Wednesday night's win, got the put backs, loose balls and clutch shots and rebounds every time they needed them down the stretch. The Hawks, meanwhile, were there usual self-destructive selves. They couldn't contain Ray Allen (33 points) or Rashard Lewis (25) all night. So what did they do with the game on the line? They allowed Chris Wilcox and Luke Ridnour to beat them, the former with a season-high tying 16 points off the bench and the latter with a clutch 18-footer with 18.9 seconds to play and the Sonics clinging to a 110-109 lead. "That's exactly what happened," said Hawks forward Josh Smith, whose first 3-pointer of the season with the 40.3 seconds to play gave the Hawks hope that they could salvage a game they appeared to have control of briefly in the second half. "We spent so much time paying attention to Ray and Rashard that we didn't focus on these other guys the way we should have and they drilled us when it mattered." After Ridnour's jumper gave the Sonics a 112-109 lead, the Hawks had one last chance to try and at least send the game to overtime. But Joe Johnson's 27-footer bounced off the rim. An errant outlet pass led to a jump ball between Marvin Williams and Lewis that Allen snatched over Salim Stoudamire before being fouled. Allen drained the two free throws for the final score and the Hawks, 15-36, were left ponder a two-game losing streak during which they'd actually played well enough to win. Well, had they played defense long enough to complete their impressive offensive showing. "We were terrible on defense tonight," said Hawks forward Al Harrington, who caught an elbow to the jaw from Allen that paved the way for Allen's pass to a wide-open Ridnour for that game-clinching jumper. "We didn't get any stops, myself included. We allowed too many layups and dunks. "When you play like that it's hard to win a basketball game. Going into Indiana [Friday night] we definitely can't allow that." Hawks coach Mike Woodson, beyond disgusted during his brief post game session with the media, pointed out the same things his players did. It wasn't hard to figure out what wrong. Not when the Hawks get 24 points from Harrington, 18 from Joe Johnson, 14 from Josh Smith and a combined 37 from Williams and Josh Childress off the bench and still lose. "I thought defensively we had no presence at all," Woodson said. They played last night and we did, too. We came in thinking we were just going to outshoot them. They're a pretty good offensive team, which makes it difficult." 原文轉載 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0223hawks.html --

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