PHILADELPHIA -- Insofar as the Hawks made their opponent labor for their victory, Wednesday night was an improvement. The result, though, was the same.
The Hawks continued to plummet, this time losing 105-100 to the Philadelphia 76ers. They're 3-8 in their past 11 and 7-14 in their past 21, a slide triggered by Philadelphia's 34-point win in Atlanta on Feb. 8.
"It's a game that we had, and we let it slip out of our fingers," said forward Josh Smith, who contributed a monster game (33 points, 12 rebounds) in the loss.
The Sixers (37-34) climbed to within 2 1/2 games of the Hawks (40-32) for the No. 5 spot in the Eastern Conference. Should the Sixers pass them, the Hawks would drop to the No. 6 spot and likely would face the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs.
Before the game, the Hawks vowed to make amends after a 33-point home loss to the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday night, their third home loss of the season by 30 or more points. Coach Larry Drew went so far as to say that "these are times when you see what people are made of."
It worked at the start. The Hawks played with the lead much of the game, moving ahead midway through the second quarter. The lead grew to 11 points in the third quarter and extended into the fourth.
Guard Kirk Hinrich came out hot, scoring 13 points in the first 14 minutes before a sprained right thumb limited his effectiveness. Smith went to the basket often and needed only 21 shots for his 33 points.
"I know they were trapping Joe [Johnson] heavily, and I was just trying to put the onus on myself not to settle," Smith said.
But hanging in the air was a question of when the bubble would pop. After fending off earlier surges, the Hawks succumbed to a 14-0 Sixers run that bridged the third and fourth quarters. That would be it. A team that Drew described before the game as "a little fragile" could withstand only so many challenges before succumbing.
Drew's decision to ride his starters on the second night of a back-to-back likely factored, as well. Only two backups -- Jamal Crawford and Zaza Pachulia -- got minutes Wednesday.
"We just kind of ran out of gas there at the end," center Al Horford said.
The Hawks gasped their last when Horford and Marvin Williams missed shots close to the basket on consecutive possessions and then Sixers guard and South Gwinnett High grad Louis Williams went end to end, knifing in for an uncontested layup and an 89-82 lead with 6:58 to play. The Hawks did not get closer than five points until making a desperate charge within the last 20 seconds of the game.
In the final minutes, "we don't understand or we don't know who that person is [who should get the ball]," a downcast Johnson said. "If you notice the last four, five minutes, I don't think we know who should" shoot.
He also reiterated comments made following the Tuesday night loss.
"I'm just frustrated," he said. "Like I said, we do a lot of talking, but at the same time, we get out there on the court and we do nothing right, even though we know what to do."
