Indianapolis — So much for clinching that playoff spot or ending Indiana's playoff hopes.

Michael Conroy/AP (ENLARGE)

Atlanta Hawks guard Josh Smith, right, goes up for a dunk in front of Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger.

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The Hawks couldn't even keep up with the Pacers on Tuesday night at Conseco Fieldhouse, trailing by as many 29 points, and eventually getting blown out in a deflating 112-98 loss with huge postseason implications.

Not only do the Hawks, Pacers and New Jersey Nets continue their battle for the eighth and final Eastern Conference playoff spot into this weekend, they could very well take this thing into the final night of the season.

The Hawks are still in the eighth spot, but just two games ahead of Indiana with both teams having four games remaining. The Nets, who play tonight in Cleveland, are three games back.

And both the Pacers and Nets own the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Hawks by virtue of winning the season series against the Hawks, whose next game is Friday night in New York.

"We just added a level of drama to this whole thing by not taking care of our business," said Hawks captain and All-Star Joe Johnson, who finished with a game-high 30 points. "They just played harder than us. It's how hard they played. We don't play hard, we get our [expletive] kicked. Point blank."

The Hawks didn't just lose a game Tuesday, falling to 36-42 on the season.

They also lost their cool — Josh Smith got a technical foul in the third quarter for arguing with the officials, and coach Mike Woodson, Joe Johnson and sixth-man Josh Childress were all in danger of doing the same during a post-halftime meltdown that saw the Pacers outscore the Hawks 20-6 during the game-breaking stretch.

Not even the Hawks' frantic, Johnson-led fourth-quarter rally, in which they got as close as 10 points twice in the game's final seven minutes, could make up for the disaster that was their first 36 minutes. In that stretch, the Hawks looked lost trying to keep up with the bigger, stronger and much sharper Pacers.

"Unfortunately you have to play four quarters," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "We only played one quarter. We got back in it and cut it to 10 twice. But you can't spot this team 30 points and expect to come back and win. We didn't have any kind of defensive presence.

"You're talking about making the playoffs; you better play defense and rebound the ball to give yourself a chance to win."

The Hawks simply couldn't defend the Pacers, giving an effort similar to the one they gave in a Jan. 4 beating they took here at the hands of a Pacers team that was reeling from five consecutive losses.

Just like that night, the Hawks were done in by Mike Dunleavy (28 points), who had plenty of help Tuesday from Flip Murray (20 and 10 assists), Danny Granger (16), Jeff Foster (10) and both Marquis Daniels (15) and Jermaine O'Neal (10 points and four blocks) off the bench.

"This is the game we needed to win to lock things up, and we didn't do it," said Smith, who finished with 25 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and a block.

"Now we have to go down to the wire with this thing and play every game like it's our last."