Hawks roll past Denver behind Crawford's 25

By Ken Sugiura

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The needle that hovered on empty Friday night indicated a full tank 24 hours later.

Saturday night at Philips Arena, the Hawks put a walloping on the Denver Nuggets, attacking them from all angles in an eye-opening 125-100 win.

It followed a 20-point loss to the Charlotte Bobcats on Friday, which was the end of a stretch of five games in seven days, three of the games on the West Coast, in which the Hawks were 3-2.

"It just shows us overcoming adversity and being able to stay with it and dig out through it," said forward Josh Smith, who had a high-performance night with 22 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, six blocks and just one turnover.

Words of caution before flipping out over the Hawks' victory over a team that won 54 games a year ago and reached the Western Conference final: The Nuggets were without two valuable players, forward Kenyon Martin (leg contusion) and guard J.R. Smith (serving the last game of a seven-game suspension), and are on a grind of a road trip themselves.

Said Hawks coach Mike Woodson, "I know [coach] George [Karl] is probably in there wondering where was the energy for his group tonight, just like I was last night, shaking my head."

Regardless, the Nuggets had opened the season 5-0 before falling Friday and again Saturday. They also benefited from 33 fouls whistled on the Hawks -- tying the single-game high for the NBA this season -- and a 41-30 edge in free throws attempted.

The Hawks, now 5-2 and 3-0 at Philips, countered with perhaps their best defensive effort of the season, holding Denver to 41 percent from the floor. Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony, shadowed much of the night by Hawks forward Marvin Williams, shot 7-for-21 from the field, though he finished with 30 points, thanks to 15 made free throws.

They worked the offensive end well, shooting 51.7 percent from the field and dealing 30 assists to eight turnovers. The Hawks jumped the Nuggets from the tip, never trailing after the first minute and going up 33-25 at the end of the first quarter. The margin surged to 77-54 midway through the third, and Denver never got closer than 12 points after that.

Hawks guard Jamal Crawford led with 25 points off the bench, one of three players with more than 20 points and one of seven in double figures.

"Atlanta has as many good one-on-one players as any in the NBA, and that showed," Karl said. "Almost everyone was on for them tonight."

The Hawks took no small pleasure in being able to finish the seven-day run and recover from the Charlotte loss. They will be off until a Wednesday road game against the Knicks.

"It's a good early-season challenge to see how you bounce back from adverse situations," Crawford said. "Right now, I think we're showing who we are."

Johnson, for one, was still smarting from the Charlotte loss, saying "I think we still have a little bit of immaturity on this team. And that's something we've got to look forward to working on. In no way possible should Charlotte beat us by 20, even though they were at home."

Smith looked forward to a day of leisure.

The Hawks forward acknowledged being "pretty tired."

"I'll have [Sunday] to rest my body and come in and be able to practice on Monday," Smith said. His plans? "Relax and watch some football."