Friday, Nov. 06, 2009

Atlanta Hawks (4-1) at Charlotte Bobcats (2-2), 7 p.m.

The Atlanta Hawks seem to have found their rhythm and will wrap up a successful road trip tonight against the Charlotte Bobcats at Time Warner Cable Arena.

Atlanta opened the four-game trek with a tough loss to the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, then rebounded for two straight wins over Portland and Sacramento to push its overall mark to 4-1. In Wednesday's 113-105 victory against the Kings at ARCO Arena, Jamal Crawford posted 26 points on 10-of-15 shooting and Joe Johnson also netted 26 points for the Hawks, who have been getting 17.8 points per game from Crawford since he was acquired in the offseason.

"You got to push through, you can't have a big win (versus Portland on Tuesday) then have a letdown game. We have some veterans on this team and that's what we're trying to harp on, that we can't have any letdown games, and we came out and took care of business tonight," Crawford said.

Josh Smith scored 14 points, while Mike Bibby and Marvin Williams each had 13 points in a winning cause.

Charlotte will close out a brief two-game homestand Friday and has alternated wins and losses to start the season. The Bobcats are coming off Monday's 79-68 victory versus the New Jersey Nets, as D.J. Augustin finished with 21 points and Gerald Wallace posted 24 points, a career-best 20 rebounds and four steals for the Bobcats, who outscored the Nets, 46-27, in the second half. A 24-0 run by the Bobcats sealed New Jersey's fate.

"I just think our offense started out horribly in the first half," said Wallace. "We didn't make shots, we didn't pass the ball. I think our defense kept us in the game and gave us a chance to win in the second half."

Boris Diaw added 14 points for Charlotte, which suffered a 90-79 loss at Cleveland Saturday night. Augustin, meanwhile, is questionable for tonight's game because of an ankle injury. Flip Murray could make his Bobcats debut Friday after missing the first four games with a shin problem. Murray was signed as a free agent in September.

Atlanta won three of four meetings with Charlotte last season, but has dropped eight of the 10 matchups as the visitor in this series.