For the first time in a week, the Hawks played a close game.
It took a scoring drought of more than five minutes to make it that way.
The Hawks fought off a tough second quarter, battled back and took a 107-104 victory against the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday night at Philips Arena.
The Hawks (21-7, 13-2 home) have won five in a row against some of the top teams in the NBA. They have defeated the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks and Clippers. The teams had a combined record of 87-42. The victory was also the 14th in the past 15 games for the Hawks.
DeMarre Carroll led the Hawks with a career-high 25 points and 10 rebounds. The performance included a career-high tying five 3-pointers. Al Horford added 20 points and Paul Millsap had 17 points.
Blake Griffin led the Clippers with 21 points.
The Hawks scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter to grab a 90-83 lead after trailing by as many as 13 points in the third.
Horford made a free throw with 6.4 seconds left to give the Hawks a three-point lead.
The Hawks led by 40-30 in the second quarter. The advantage was immediately followed by an offensive drought that has been rare this season. The Clippers went on a 17-0 run as the Hawks failed to score for 5:35. During the difficulty, they were 0 of 6 from the field and committed five turnovers. The streak ended on two free throws from Millsap. In all the Hawks committed nine turnovers in the quarter that lead to 12 points.
The Clippers kept the seven-point advantage until halftime and took a 57-50 lead into intermission after outscoring the Hawks 32-19 in the period.
The Hawks clawed back with a strong third quarter. They outscored the Clippers 12-4 from the free-throw line in the period. The Hawks tied the game at 81 on a Jeff Teague 3-pointer with 41 seconds remaining in the period. The Clippers got a basket from Jamal Crawford to take a two-point lead into the final quarter.
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