13-minute scoring dought dooms Hawks

Miami — The empty look on Joe Johnson’s face near the end said it all.

Once again, Johnson and his Hawks were on the wrong end of a lopsided game without any reasonable explanation for their lethargic performance early.

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AP

Hawks forward Josh Smith slams in 2 of his 14 points over Heat center Jamaal Magloire.

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The Hawks’ 95-79 loss to a surging Miami Heat team Monday night at American Airlines Arena is one thing.

The way they lost, though, is another story.

“We’re not playing together on either end of the court,” Johnson said after a game in which the Hawks set a franchise record for the fewest points scored in the first half with 27 and trailed by 21 points at the break. “We just weren’t playing hard and that’s pretty much how it’s been a lot of games that we’ve been down. We’re not playing hard and we make it tough on ourselves.

“And I think everybody really has to check themselves. We’re not making the extra pass on offense and we’re turning the ball over and honestly, it’s very frustrating at this point in the season to see us spinning our wheels like this after all that we’ve done.”

The Hawks remain in the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference with their 26-18 record. But the Heat and idle Detroit Pistons, both 24-19, are gaining fast.

“We really have to go back and look at the game we won and copy that blueprint every night,” said Hawks forward Josh Smith, who finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds. “We’re doing this to ourselves and it just doesn’t make any sense. I wish I could explain why we’re not playing the right way to start these games, because I’d fix it if I knew.”

Games like Monday’s, when all the energy was on the side of the Heat from the start, illustrate why the Hawks can’t seem to create any distance between themselves and the pack of teams chasing them in the standings.

“I didn’t like the way we were playing,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. “It was obvious from the [first half] stat sheet. We had 15 turnovers and three assists. We were so selfish and it didn’t get much better to start the third quarter. Fortunately for us they were turning it over as well.

“Luckily, we were able to get back in the game, but we just didn’t have the juice coming down the stretch.”

After the Hawks closed to within seven points twice early in the fourth quarter, Heat superstar Dwyane Wade pushed his team back on top by scoring 10 of his game-high 35 points in the final nine minutes.

The Heat stretched that lead back to 18 points in the final minute, escaping the danger by allowing the Hawks to dig yet another hole with their own mistakes.

“We’ve been doing this to ourselves,” said Johnson, who led the Hawks with 19 points on 7-for-15 shooting from the floor. “You expend all the energy we did to get back in a game that you’re down 21 or 22 points, you’re not going to have it at the end. Good teams just aren’t going to allow you to come back like that.”

The Hawks found the going similarly tough in their loss to the Suns on Sunday, when they trailed 22-8 early and battled to back to take control several times but faded down the stretch, including a six-minute scoreless stretch in the fourth quarter.

They didn’t wait that long Monday night, going scoreless for a mind-boggling 13 minute, 24 second stretch in the first half when the Heat turned an early 17-14 lead into a 21-point rout by halftime.

“It makes no sense,” Hawks forward Marvin Williams said. “We have to figure this out, though, because we can’t keep going like this. It can’t keep happening like this. We have to stick together through times like this.”