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Boozer, Jazz continue home mastery of Hawks

Feb 24, 2008 - 6:16 AM SALT LAKE CITY (Ticker) -- Carlos Boozer scored 21 points and grabbed 12 rebounds as the Utah Jazz held off the fiesty Atlanta Hawks, 100-94, on Saturday.

Andrei Kirilenko scored 11 points and the Utah reserves outscored Atlanta's bench, 36-12, en route to their 14th straight home win over the Hawks.

"We're always happy with a win," said forward Kyle Korver, who sealed the win with four free throws in the final 20 seconds.

"I feel like we haven't been playing quite as well the last couple games as we had been the last month-and-a-half. We've gotta get back on track, and wins always help that."

Josh Smith scored 30 points and Mike Bibby added 18 and nine assists for Atlanta, which has not won here since February 13, 1993.

"This team really gave us a lot of trouble," Jazz coach Jerry Sloan said. "I thought they played hard. They pushed the ball up the floor. They've got a lot of great athletes and we had to play awfully well there to finish the ballgame and end up being able to win."

Utah, which has the best home mark in the league at 24-3, has now won 14 straight here. It is five games off the franchise mark of 19 set in 1996.

"We know we're a very good home team, and we're going to continue to capitalize on our home-court advantage, with our fans and how we play here," Boozer said. "We're not going to think about records - before somebody jinxes it."

Despite the victory, it was the second messy showing in a row for the Jazz, who fell to the woeful Clippers on the road Friday.

Utah exploded at the end of the third quarter with a 15-4 run to take a 73-62 lead into the final period.

The lead reached 82-66 with 8:57 left but the Hawks, who hit 7-of-15 3-pointers, rallied. In a matter of five possessions, the Hawks hit three 3-pointers. Joe Johnson's second of the period made it a one-possession game, 82-79, with 5:33 left.

"They're a good perimeter shooting team," Jazz point guard Deron Williams said. "They're very athletic and they're hard to defend. They've got a lot of different lineups - they go small, they go big. They're a tough team."

Kirilenko's 3-pointer pushed the Utah lead back up to six. But it wasn't long before Atlanta was within two at 90-88, thanks to Josh Smith's 3-point play at the two-minute mark.

Atlanta hurt its chances of coming back by turning the ball over 22 times.

"We kept digging holes and then we would come back," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "Against a good team like this, we turned the ball over so many times tonight that we didn't give ourselves an opportunity to score the ball, and you can't do that on the road."

With 43 seconds remaining and Utah ahead, 94-90, Smith who second in the NBA with 3.2 blocks per game, kept the Jazz from getting any breathing room with a crucial block on Boozer.

But the fourth-year swingman missed a jumper on the other end and the Jazz escaped.

Johnson had 14 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists for Atlanta, which fell to 1-4 on its six-game road trip.