ASSOCIATED PRESS Atlanta Hawks forward Josh Smith (5) dunks against the Washington Wizards during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Thursday, March 11, 2010, in Washington. WASHINGTON | As he sits on the bench at the start of each game, Jamal Crawford analyzes the opposition, the defenses they are employing, and the flow of the game. The Atlanta Hawks are sure glad their sixth-man extraordinaire is a quick study.
Crawford scored 29 points and the Hawks avoided a three-game losing streak by beating the Washington Wizards 105-99 Thursday night.
"You get a chance to see what teams are doing on coverage and how you can kind of pick them apart and dissect them," said Crawford, who has led the Hawks in scoring 21 times this season. "Then I can come in and try to help do that."
The Hawks were unable to shake the Wizards for nearly three quarters before Crawford scored 12 points in the final 3:37 of the third quarter, connecting on two of his four made 3-pointers and then finishing with six free throws.
"I just wanted to mix it up," Crawford said. "I didn't want to settle just for threes after that. I knew they would get up closer so I wanted to get by them and get to the free-throw line and kind of slow the game down a little bit."
The free throws spurred a 13-1 run bridging the third and fourth quarters to help the Hawks take an 85-73 lead.
"He just comes in and changes the game," Al Horford said of the Hawks' super sub. "He really gave us a lift when we needed him to. It was tied 66-66 and he came in and made two threes and I think that changed the complexion of the game."
Horford and Joe Johnson each scored 18 points in Atlanta's first trip to the nation's capital this season for the makeup of a game that was postponed Feb. 6 due to a blizzard which left 2 feet of snow in the area.
Andray Blatche had 30 points and 10 rebounds for Washington, in the midst of a stretch of three games in three nights because of the schedule change. The Wizards have lost five straight and seven of eight.
Blatche's putback with 4:53 remaining pulled the Wizards to 92-89, but they would get no closer.
By Jeannine Aversa - Associated Press
updated 17 minutes ago
The recovery lost momentum in the spring as growth slowed to a 2.4 percent pace, its most sluggish showing in nearly a year and too weak to drive down unemployment. Published 8:33 a.m. July 30, 2010
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The House ethics committee officially lodged charges against Rep. Charles B. Rangel, including that he used his office to raise $8 million for a college public policy center named after him and didn't file taxes while he was Congress' chief tax writer. Published 8:56 p.m. July 29, 2010
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