• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Hawks hope to even series against favored Celtics

Apr 28, 2008 - 1:17 PM Boston at Atlanta 8:00 pm EDT Eastern Conference first round Celtics lead, 2-1

ATLANTA (Ticker) - With not a single of their five losses against the Boston Celtics decided by fewer than 10 points this season, the Atlanta Hawks weren't expected to put up much of a fight.

Now, with their first postseason win in nine years in their hip pocket, the Hawks look to even their Eastern Conference first-round series with the Boston Celtics when the teams meet in Game Four on Monday.

Atlanta dropped the first two games of this series by 23 and 19 points, respectively, in Boston.

However, the Hawks - the NBA's youngest team - showed surprising resiliency in front of a raucous home crowd in Saturday's 102-93 win over the Celtics for their first postseason win since 1999, when they closed Detroit out in the fifth and final game of the first round in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

"You want to celebrate," said Hawks rookie center Al Horford, who finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds. "For a lot of us, it's our first (playoff) win. ... I just felt like it was just electric tonight. I just wanted to help my team and keep it going. We need to keep this intensity."

"I have not seen the crowd that electric since I've been here," said Hawks guard Joe Johnson, who scored a team-high 27 points. "We got out to a pretty good start and we maintained it throughout the course of the game. We made a run and I thought that this game was going to be about runs, and we had more runs than the Celtics."

Still the prohibitive favorite to win this series, the Celtics have little to worry about as long as their track record this season continues to hold up. Boston has lost consecutive games only twice this season.

"We're going to have to come out in Game Four and just remember to play together," Celtics reserve forward P.J. Brown said. "It's hard to sweep a team in the playoffs. It's hard to come on the opposing floor and grab a win. We knew this game was not going to be easy, so we're just going to regroup and come back for Game Four."

The Celtics - who allowed 90.3 points per game during the regular season, the second-lowest total in the league - are just 1-3 in games in which they allow more than 100 points since the beginning of March.

"We didn't help each other offensively and we didn't help each other defensively," Celtics guard Ray Allen said. "We still made plays, but typical Celtics basketball, we always help each other on the floor."