Playoffs Race.

NBA Playoffs Smith gives Hawks a lift.
ATLANTA — Give Josh Smith a perfect 10 in his personal dunking contest.

And give the Atlanta Hawks some credit: The team that was supposed to get swept by big, bad Boston in the opening round of the playoffs pulled off a win that was nine years in the making.
The high-flying Smith scored 27 points and the Hawks earned their first playoff victory since 1999, beating the Celtics 102-93 Saturday night to cut Boston's lead in the series to 2-1.

"My heart was racing, I was so excited," said Smith, who certainly did his part by dunking five times on the Celtics. "I wanted to give the city of Atlanta something to cheer about."
The Hawks are still huge underdogs to the Celtics. But for one night at least, Smith — a former NBA dunk champion — had the rim rockin' and the sellout crowd of 19,725 on its feet.


"It gets everybody going," Smith said of his above-the-hoop theatrics. "It gets the crowd going. It gets my teammates going. That's what we needed: easy points."

With everyone thinking sweep, the Hawks made sure the series will at least get back to Boston for a fifth game. They'll try to even it up in Game 4 Monday night at Philips Arena.

"We're not satisfied," said Joe Johnson, who added 23 points for Atlanta. "We have another one to get. We know it's going to be very electric Monday, and we're looking forward to it."

The Celtics know they gave Atlanta a glimmer of hope. They want to snuff it out as quickly as possible.

"We went away from what we've been doing all year," Rajon Rondo said. "I feel this is a must-win game for us Monday."

Kevin Garnett led Boston with 32 points, but the NBA's youngest playoff team had him kneeling over, looking totally exhausted, by the end of the game.

Paul Pierce, who was body-slammed to the court in Game 2, played 36 minutes with a stiff back and wasn't much of a factor. He managed 17 points on 5-of-13 shooting. Allen was 5 of 14 and held to 13 points, leaving Garnett to carry the Big Three. He also had 10 rebounds.

More: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2004376402_nbagame27.html

Courtesy of: The Associated Press