Forget it.
The Hawks put that one to rest - saving their season as well.
Zaza Pachulia - with a black right eye for his trouble - finished with 12 points and 18 rebounds for Atlanta, which raced out to a huge first-half lead and frustrated Dwyane Wade endlessly in beating the Miami Heat 81-71 Monday night to tie their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at two games apiece.
Mike Bibby scored 15 points, Joe Johnson added 14 and Josh Smith 13 for the Hawks.
Wade scored 22 points, doing so on 9-for-26 shooting and wincing at times from a back injury. Jermaine O’Neal scored 20 points for the Heat and James Jones added 19 - 10 of them coming in a spectacular first-half spurt - for Miami, which shot 38 percent and never led.
It was Atlanta’s first postseason road win in nearly 12 years, a stretch spanning 13 games, and ended a slide in which the Hawks had been pounded by a combined 132 points in their five most recent playoff games played outside Georgia’s capital city.
Now the series returns to Atlanta on Wednesday for Game 5, and all the Hawks need is to defend their home court twice to get a second-round shot against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Bibby’s 3-pointer with 4:57 left was the final dagger, giving the Hawks a 10-point lead and stopping the Heat’s last real shot at a rally.
Knowing the Hawks would want no part of a 3-1 deficit, the Heat expected Atlanta’s best shot.
Miami got it but wasn’t ready.
The Heat shot 5-for-23 in the first 21 minutes, digging a 21-point hole. At one point, Miami nearly had as many fouls (15) as points (19) and Wade had four airballs (arguing he was fouled on two) as things were unraveling.
When Zaza Pachulia tipped in Flip Murray’s missed 3-pointer for a 44-23 lead, he looked at his teammates on the Atlanta bench and started punching the air.
Coincidentally, that’s when Miami started to fight.
A 19-2 Heat run closed the half, with Jones needing only 41 seconds to get 10 points - the last eight coming in (probably) never-before-seen fashion, with a pair of four-point plays 11 seconds apart.
The Heat sharpshooter made a 3-pointer with 2:26 remaining, got fouled by Solomon Jones and swished the free throw. Miami immediately got the ball back when Bibby ran over Mario Chalmers, and with 2:15 left, James Jones struck again.
He connected from the left side, got fouled by Bibby, made that free throw as well and Miami clawed within 46-42 at halftime.
Even the Elias Sports Bureau, which tracks nearly every stat imaginable, didn’t know if Jones’ feat had been done before.
Either way, it was for naught. Atlanta’s lead was never smaller than three after halftime, and the Hawks led by as many as 13 points in the final quarter.
