Hawks not making any excuses

Joe Johnson’s emotionless reaction to the Hawks 6-0 start seemed strange at the time.

He wasn’t particularly impressed, and unlike many, he didn’t think it was as big a deal as others were making of it.

Three straight losses later and his measured approach looks more appropriate than ever.

And that’s why he won’t blame fatigue — the Hawks just finished a stretch of seven games in 11 days and will embark upon another fire drill of seven games in 12 days Tuesday in Indiana — for the Hawks’ recent struggles.

“This is our job, this is what we get paid to do so I won’t ever blame any struggles on the schedule or outside influences or anything like that,” the Hawks captain and All-Star said after Saturday’s blowout loss to New Jersey at Philips Arena, their second straight to the Nets. “I don’t blame it on fatigue. We’re professionals. This comes with it. You just have to fight through that. As you can see, we get a little tired and we ain’t [expletive].”

Johnson has won big before. He was on a Phoenix team that won a league-best 62 games in the 2004-05 season. He is aware that grading yourself during the good times is fool’s gold.

That means the real Hawks are currently somewhere between that 6-0 juggernaut that started start the season and the 0-3 team of the past five days.

“Even though we won those six and I was happy about it,” Johnson said, “but at the same time I wasn’t satisfied and didn’t think we had turned some corner or anything. This is a tough league and everybody is going to have their ups and down and you have to be able to fight through it.”

The Hawks insist that more was made of their fabulous start outside of the locker room than was inside of it.

“We weren’t on some high cloud anyway,” Flip Murray said. “We had a chance to put a little win-streak together and whenever you have a chance to do that during the course of a season it’s a good thing. But you’re going to have situations when you lose a couple and you just have to be able to bounce back and recover and get it going again in the right direction.”

Hawks coach Mike Woodson gave his team the day off Sunday, allowing them one day to relax and recharge before saddling up for another tough stretch that includes two back-to-back sets and roads games against Indiana and Cleveland (Saturday) before Thanksgiving.

“It’s always good to get a rest, but at the same time it’s not an excuse,” Murray said. “We still have to find a way to win. Nobody cares that we played nine games in 14 days or whatever. There were no excuses when we were winning. We just got outplayed twice by Jersey.”

That’s why Woodson wants his team rested and ready for a tough practice today before they depart for Indianapolis.

“We haven’t had any practice time,” Woodson said. “And I could see some slippage in the last two or three games just from a defensive standpoint. Guys were missing assignments and things of that nature because we haven’t had a chance to practice.”

Last week, the Hawks ranked among the NBA’s top two in points allowed at 85.5. As of Monday, they are giving up 97.1.

“Joe’s right, we can’t make any excuses,” Marvin Williams said. “We just need to get back to playing the way we were defensively. We’re making plenty of shots, but we’re just not locking down [on defense] like we were earlier this season.”