Season-high from Josh Smith not enough for Hawks

Philadelphia — April Fool’s Day came early for the Hawks.

How else could they explain their inept performance for three quarters in a game of such importance?

Save for a furious, Josh Smith-fueled, eight-minute stretch that saw the Hawks cut a 16-point lead to one point, the Philadelphia 76ers wiped the Wachovia Center floor with the Hawks on Tuesday night.

The 98-85 victory was crucial for the 76ers, who edged the Hawks 2-1 in their season series and sent a strong message to the team they could meet in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

“It’s very disappointing,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. “We just seemed satisfied after that Lakers game, and we seem satisfied. And we still have a lot of games left to play here.”

The Hawks still have a cushion for fourth place in the conference race and the home-court advantage for the playoffs that comes with it. But the 76ers own the psychological edge if the two teams meet in the postseason, having won their past two meetings.

For much of the night the Hawks played like a team still floating on the fumes from Sunday’s home victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, not a team hungry to finish off a huge month with yet another win over a playoff-bound team.

“You can’t beat the second-best team in the league and then come out here and lay an egg the way we did,” Smith said. “We needed to have the same kind of defensive effort tonight that we did Sunday, and it just wasn’t there.”

Turnovers and a lack of focus on defense doomed the Hawks early. It was a formula similar to the one the 76ers used to run past the Hawks in their previous meeting, when they won 109-94 on Jan. 11 at Philips Arena.

Joe Johnson and Mike Bibby were a combined 0-for-10 from the floor by halftime, and the Hawks trailed 51-37.

It wasn’t until late in the third quarter that Smith got any real help on offense against Andre Iguodala and the Sixers’ balanced attack. But the Hawks could get no closer than a point in the fourth quarter.

“We came out flat tonight, typical road performance for us as of late,” said Hawks swingman Mo Evans. “We used up so much energy and effort to get back into the game that by the time we got back in it we needed everything to go right. And when it didn’t, and once things went back south, we didn’t have enough time to fight our way back in it.”

Smith was magnificent on offense and defense, he made 12 straight buckets during one stretch, but had to go it alone for much of the night.

After scoring 15 points in the first half, he finished with a season-high 33 on 13-for-15 shooting from the floor. He was 4-for-4 from the free-throw line and 3-of-3 on 3-points shots. Flip Murray added 19 off the bench, but Johnson and Bibby were a combined 5-for-18 from the floor.

“Tonight they just couldn’t make shots,” Woodson said of his starting backcourt. “And we turned the ball over 19 or 20 times that resulted in 19 points for them, and that was huge.”

That and the fact that the Hawks were bothered all night by the 76ers’ height and athletic ability inside, something that doesn’t offer disrupt what the Hawks like to do because they have the same thing in abundance.

“The main thing is we can’t start off from behind,” said Hawks center Al Horford, who battled foul trouble all night. “Especially on the road. It’s even worse. We have to create our own energy and momentum. Philly deserved to win it. They played us hard from start to finish.

“And that’s why this has to serve as a lesson for us. We’re not in the playoffs yet. We’ve got a lot of basketball to be played yet and we have to finish the regular season off the right way.”