Atlanta Hawks: Hawks 93, Heat 89

Hawks put up a fight against Wade's Heat. (Hector Gabino / el Nuevo Herald)

• Miami–This wasn’t the soft team L.D. described after the Hawks barely bothered to play defense against the Rockets and Kings.
• “We showed up tonight,” Drew said.
• The Hawks won at Miami for the first time since Dec. 12, 2008. It was their fifth straight road W and they know have 14 on the season, second only to the Heat’s 15.
• The Hawks improved to 4-6 in road games against teams with winning records.
• “Guys knew that this was going to be one of those games that sometimes you get measured on,” Jamal said. “It’s a good barometer. They are not fully healthy, but we aren’t either. We just had to kind of go with it.”
• The Hawks went into the Heat’s building and beat them at their rugged style. They won despite losing Al in the third quarter, facing a 29-14 deficit in free throws, Le Bron’s 34 points and 27 from D-Wade.
• They did it by continuing to grind when the Heat made one final push to force overtime.
• “You have to be able to play different styles, especially against the top teams,” Jamal said. “To win, we had to gut it out.”
• Every guy who made a mistake going down the stretch–J.J.’s bad turnover, Mo’s bad foul, Smoove’s bad shots, Jamal’s forced runners–did something later to win the game.
• “It showed a lot of heart, determination, growth and maturity,” J.J. said. “It was a hard-fought game. Their rotation on defense was phenomenal tonight. We just made the extra pass and were getting open shots.”
• The Hawks didn’t make many of them. The shot selection was suspect at times. They had lots of careless turnovers, especially in transition.
• Atlanta’s team defense, however, was spirited, physical and exceptional.
• “That is how you have to play a team like this, because they are going to force you to play like that,” Drew said. “If you don’t they are going to run you out of the building.”
• No Bosh for a team without much offensive depth to begin with certainly helped the Hawks’ cause but they made things difficult for Miami from start to finish. Miami shot a season-low 36 percent from the field.
• “I’ve been saying since I got here, when we help each other and everybody is on a string we are one of the top teams in the league,” Bibby said. “We did that tonight. We helped, and we rotated out and everybody was moving. When we are that active, we are real good.”
• Smoove, arms waving and feet moving, stalked James to all corners of the court. He helped make James a jump shooter and it paid off.
• “I thought he did a real good job against him,” Drew said. “He’s out there flapping around, but I do think his length bothers people. And he has the ability to erase a mistake when he gets beat off the dribble when someone goes to the basket.”
• At one point of the third quarter, Josh looked like he could barely stand while chasing LeBron through several screens on the perimeter. He stuck with it and LeBron eventually missed a long jumper.
• “It’s so hard to be able to guard so many re-screens,” Josh said. “You find your legs getting tired. They beat you up on the screens. But it’s all mental for me and I just fought through it. I wanted to suck it up and be able to stand up for my team.”
• Josh’s thunderous dunk over Joel Anthony late in regulation gave the Hawks a jolt and quieted the crowd after it looked like they would fade like last time they were here.
• “I kind of looked to the right and still saw him coming,” Smoove said. “I knew I had to finish hard because he’s a pretty good shot-blocker.”
• “We needed something to motivate and energize us,” L.D. said. “That gave us a little life. Everything we got tonight we really had to earn. We needed something to spark us and Josh came up with the big play.”
• It was clear early that J.J. was locked in for his duel with D-Wade. He shadowed the Heat’s All-Star around the court, using his size and strength to keep him away from the basket.
• “I think Joe got us going with that,” Drew said. “Watching him those first few possessions of the game against Wade, I thought he played him with his speed and played him with a physicality and started banging around in there.”
• Joe hurt the Hawks with too much iso play in the second quarter. He also threw the ball away with Atlanta up 76-75. But then he tied it on a classic Joe move: Hesitate, dart into the lane then score on a floater.
• “I knew there was a lot riding on me,” he said. “I just wanted to come up big for the squad and somehow get it into overtime and then it’s our will against theirs.”
• The Heat was disorganized after tying it at 84-84 and Joe smartly set up Jamal for a corner 3. Jamal made it, one of his six baskets after halftime. “The last two games I wasn’t as aggressive as I would have liked,” he said. “Tonight I got back on track.”
• The Hawks needed someone other than Jamal to produce off the bench and Mo delivered. After standing in the corner and missing a wide open 3 in regulation, then compounded that error by fouling James 40 feet from the basket, Mo scored the first five points of overtime for Atlanta.
• LeBron, back after missing two games with an ankle injury, got lured into taking long jumpers. The Hawks didn’t allow him many of his devastating runs at the basket.
• “LeBron started to make some shots there toward the end, but that was a game plan we decided to stay with,” Drew said. “If we were going to give up anything, let’s give up a contested jump shot as opposed to him getting to the basket. We executed that going down the stretch in the fourth quarter and in overtime we did a great job with that.”
• Al didn’t return after suffering the sprained ankle. He wasn’t in the locker room when I got in there. “I don’t know how bad it is or if he’s going to be out,” Drew said.
• It was kind of surreal to see JC2 suddenly checking into this game late in regulation. He missed a 3-point try.

MC