The Hawks pride themselves on their resilience.

No one thought they'd make the playoffs after a two-month swoon before the February trade deadline.

And no one thought they would get very far against Boston, which had the league's best record, in their first-round playoff series.

So they're counting on everyone counting them out for tonight's Game 6 against the Celtics at Philips Arena. A loss would end their season.

"If we were going to let any one thing get us down and make us quit, we'd have done it a long time ago," Josh Smith said. "That's just not who we are. There's not a guy in this locker room that didn't think we had a chance in this series before it started. There's not one who didn't believe we still had a chance after we got down 0-2. So I know you don't think we've stopped believing in ourselves now."

Johnson calls for better execution

While the Hawks seemed to be the aggressor in Games 3 and 4, the Celtics fought back in Game 5 Wednesday night in Boston.

The Hawks didn't match Boston's physical play on either end of the floor.

"The physical part is no problem," Hawks captain Joe Johnson said. "We can deal with that. That's nothing. I just think offensively and defensively, we're not communicating and we are not running our sets. Then, if we do run our sets, we're not running them hard. So we are really making it tough on ourselves when this game really isn't hard at all.

"It's nothing that they're doing [physically]. We're just not executing."

Horford urged to rein in exuberance

When Hawks center Al Horford was at Florida, teammate Joakim Noah was the flamboyant one, the guy who might scream after grabbing a rebound or holler at the crowd.

But Horford has assumed that role for the Hawks in this series, having been in the middle of several situations where he has flashed glimpses of a fiery personality few knew existed.

Who can forget the ball-polishing move he made after a Josh Smith block in Game 3? And then there was his much-talked-about taunting of Paul Pierce in the final seconds of that win, the chatter that resulted in Pierce's "menacing gesture" and the $25,000 fine that came with it.

"He's seemingly doing more Joakim Noah-type antics, which I'm frankly a little disappointed in," said ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, who will call tonight's game. "He's such a good player, I just don't think he needs that."

Horford finished second to Seattle's Kevin Durant in NBA Rookie of the Year voting, getting 30 of 125 first-place votes to Durant's 90.