Hawks players have overcome assortment of challenges this season.
They may have have topped them all last weekend.
The short-handed Hawks played three games in three nights, an artifact of the lockout-compressed schedule, and won all of them. The third game, Sunday's 139-133 victory against Utah, was the first NBA quadruple overtime game in more than 14 years.
“That was something,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “It's all happened to us this year thus far. We've gone through injury. We've gone through emergencies with families. We've gone through [difficult] scheduling, zig-zagging across all the states, 11-, 12-day trips.
“And now we go through a back-to-back-to-back and we have -- what was it? Four overtimes?”
Yes, it was four overtimes.
“This team, it just doesn't have any quit in it,” Drew said, smiling.
It won't take long for the Hawks (30-20) to get more chances to prove it. After a day off Monday, they play four games in five nights against teams who also are seeking optimal positioning in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Atlanta plays Tuesday at the Bucks, who are jockeying with the Knicks for the eighth and final East playoff spot. Atlanta plays host to East leader Chicago Wednesday and the Knicks Friday at Philips Arena, then finish the week Saturday at the Sixers.
The Hawks ended the weekend alone in fifth place in the Eastern Conference. They held off a strong challenge from Cleveland Friday and had to come back from 16 points down to win at Washington Saturday, leaving some question as to how much they'd have left for streaking Utah.
And that was before the game Sunday kept getting extended.
“In the fourth overtime, the starters we were sitting on the bench and we were talking about, ‘Let's finish the deal,'” Hawks center Zaza Pachulia said. “We weren't sure we were going to win but we wanted to do the right thing from the get go.”
The Hawks gained a five-point lead early in the final period and held the advantage until the end. The Jazz missed shots to win the game at the end of regulation and each of the first three overtimes.
It looked as if the Hawks might ease to victory when they started strongly against the Jazz and led 55-40 at halftime. But Utah quickly rallied by scoring the first 11 points of the third quarter and the game was tightly-contested from there.
Drew only used eight players and one of them, center Jason Collins, played just nine minutes. Three Hawks players played more than 52 minutes and two played more than 43.
"I know they were tired," Drew said. "I know they were out of gas, because I was out of gas. But the guys said they wanted to stay in and stick it out. They wanted to play it out, and I rode them."
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