ATLANTA, April 26, 2008 (AP) -- 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."
That he did.
After getting blown out twice in Boston, Smith and the Hawks seemed to take out all their frustrations on a 66-win Boston team that finished 29 games ahead of eighth-seeded Atlanta during the regular season. When the buzzer sounded, streamers fell from the ceiling of Philips Arena as if the home team had just won a championship.
The Hawks, who went 37-45 during the regular season, are still huge underdogs. 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."
Even Boston coach Doc Rivers, who played for the Hawks during their most successful era in the 1980s, was impressed.
"It was back like the old days, when Dominique [Wilkins] played," Rivers said. "I was there, too, sitting on the bench watching him."
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."
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