TORONTO—The Hawks shed their frustrations and checked off a bunch of boxes in one emphatic swoop Monday night.
They defeated the Raptors to clinch a playoff berth, avenged an embarrassing loss to Toronto the previous night and posted the franchise's best road record in 13 seasons.
The Hawks thrashed the Raptors for a 109-87 victory at Air Canada Centre. Atlanta (35-26) qualified for the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season and has six games remaining to move up in the Eastern Conference standings.
“I'm glad we got that behind us,” Hawks guard Joe Johnson said. “Now we have got to keep fighting until the end of the season and try to position ourselves to get a good spot in the postseason. Hopefully we get home-court advantage. We messed that up last night.”
Atlanta's dispiriting 102-86 loss to the Raptors Sunday hurt its chances of surpassing Indiana (39-22) for third place in the East. The Hawks are tied with Boston (36-25) and Orlando (36-25); they own the tiebreaker edge against Orlando but not Boston.
The Hawks got a rare chance to play the same opponent on consecutive days and this time shellacked the Raptors (22-40) in the way their respective records suggested they should.
“Last night we laid an egg,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said after his team won the rematch. “I challenged the guys to come out and, more than anything, bring the energy. I thought we did that.”
The Hawks, as is their habit against lesser foes, settled into trading baskets early. They took control when they finally buckled down on defense and two of their least experienced players led the way.
Rookie forward Ivan Johnson scored a career-high 21 points and added eight rebounds in 27 minutes. Jeff Teague, who is finishing up his first season as the starting point guard, had 18 points, 10 assists, six rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
Ivan Johnson and Teague were the sparks in the third quarter, when the Hawks took control by outscoring Toronto 25-17 for a 79-68 lead. Ivan Johnson had a basket and two rebounds as the Hawks opened the final period with an 8-0 run that put away Toronto.
“It's playoff time,” Teague said. “We are getting close. We have got to clean things up and be a lot sharper. That's what we did in the third quarter.”
With the victory the Hawks will finish the lockout-shortened regular season with a 17-16 road record. It's their first winning road record since they were 15-10 in 1998-99, which also was a lockout-shortened season. The Hawks remaining five regular season games are all at home.
Toronto stymied Atlanta with zone defense alignments in the previous meeting but Drew played down that strategy as a major factor in the loss. Sure enough, the Hawks looked better early against Toronto's zone this time because they created higher-quality shots and made them.
The Hawks made 12 of 18 field-goal attempts in the opening quarter and all but two of those were on shots from 19 feet or longer. The Hawks assisted on seven of those nine jump shots and the makes included 3-pointers by Teague, Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams.
The hot shooting went for naught, though, because the Hawks again couldn't slow Toronto from driving for easy scores. The Raptors matched Atlanta's 12-for-18 shooting in the first quarter while scoring 14 of their 32 points in the paint and making all seven free-throw attempts.
Atlanta's shooting cooled in the second quarter, when it missed all six 3-point attempts. But the Hawks made 8 of 11 free-throw attempts, grabbed six offensive rebounds and held Toronto to 8 of 19 shooting in the period to lead 54-51 at halftime
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