Road slump snapped at 11 By SEKOU SMITH The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 04/16/06 Milwaukee — The postseason suspense ended before halftime Saturday night. Philadelphia's loss to Orlando secured the playoff berth the Milwaukee Bucks thought they were playing for when they welcomed the Hawks to the Bradley Center. But nobody told Tyronn Lue, Josh Smith, Marvin Williams, Zaza Pachulia, Donta Smith, Anthony Grundy and the rest of the hard-luck Hawks they didn't need to be on spoiler alert. Behind Josh Smith's career-high 28-point night, they rallied from an early eight-point deficit to earn a gritty 120-114 win over the Bucks that snapped their four-game losing streak and their 11-game road losing streak in one stroke. It also moved the Hawks (25-55) one win closer to doubling last season's total, a goal they set days after last season's 13-69 finish. "We've played well against teams that have been in playoff position this year," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "To bounce back from [Friday night's home loss to Charlotte] was a great team effort across the board. We made plays down the stretch defensively and we were red hot from the field tonight. "And when you do that, you'll always have a fighting chance to go in anybody's building and get a win." When you have Lue draining shots from all over the floor during crunch time and Williams, the Smiths, Grundy and Pachulia all making clutch plays when needed, it's hard not to have at least a fighting chance to win. But the Hawks did more than that. They were able to overcome their own limitations — they played without co-captain Al Harrington (injured) and Josh Childress (suspension) — and battle the bigger Bucks (39-41) every step of the way. Leading scorer Joe Johnson had just 15 points, two in the crucial fourth quarter. But his teammates picked up the slack. "I always predicate how I'm going to play offensively off of Joe," said Lue, who sank big shot after big shot down the stretch and scored eight of his 14 points in the final 12 minutes. "He leaned over at halftime and told me that he needed me to pick up the scoring, so I had to do what I could." To go with his 28 points, Josh Smith had seven rebounds, seven assists and three blocks. Donta Smith had a career-high 14 points off the bench. Williams enjoyed one of his best games as a Hawk (19 points, 10 rebounds). Grundy scored seven crucial points off the bench. And Pachulia finished with a double double (16 points, 11 rebounds) against the team that didn't match the Hawks' free-agent offer sheet to him last summer. "No matter who we had out there, we couldn't stop them," said Bucks coach and Woodson's predecessor Terry Stotts. Clinging to a 115-108 lead with just a minute to play, the Hawks had to hold on to escape. Michael Redd's deep 3-pointer with 35.9 seconds left kept the Bucks' comeback hopes alive for at least another possession. But the Hawks countered with a clever out of bounds play where Pachulia broke out from a backcourt logjam and caught a length-of-the-floor pass from Josh Smith for a wide-open dunk and a 117-111 lead with 29.2 seconds left, providing the ultimate cushion. "We couldn't let another one slip away," Josh Smith said. "We worked too hard for this one to let it slip away at the end. We couldn't let anybody take this one away from us." 資料來源 http://www.ajc.com/hawks/content/sports/hawks/stories/0416hawks.html --

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