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"It's tough when you feel like you're in a good position at the end of games and you can't seem to get over the hump," said Hawks captain and All-Star Joe Johnson, who was defending LeBron James in the closing seconds Wednesday when the Cleveland All-Star drained the game-clinching jumper. "We know we are capable of winning these types of down-to-the-wire games. We've done it plenty of times.

"What we really need to do is stop allowing games to get to that point. When we get up on a team, we have to put our foot on their throat and not let up."

Hawks coach Mike Woodson couldn't have said it better. After Wednesday's loss, he praised James and then made a point to mention his team's shoddy defensive effort after halftime, when the Hawks actually led by a point.

"I wasn't so much looking for offense," Woodson said. "I mean defensively, in the third and fourth quarter, we were awful. I thought we succumbed to them from a defensive standpoint. We couldn't rebound, key rebounds, when we needed it."

The Hawks took a quick eight-point lead to start the third quarter but followed it up with two quick fouls, a Josh Smith turnover and two missed jumpers from Johnson in the next two minutes that allowed the Cavaliers back into the game.

The Hawks never led by more than four points after that and spent the final 6:45 chasing the Cavaliers on the scoreboard.

"Those are the sort of stretches where you have to be precise in what you're doing and execute, and we just didn't do that," Johnson said. "We had the perfect game plan and just didn't follow it through."

For a team that's spent the better part of the last month fueling everything they do with stellar and sticky defense, the hiccups on one end of the floor seemed to spread to the other.

"We've been in such a good flow lately that these last two games have really gotten us off track," Smith said. "Part of it has been great players making big plays. But a lot of it has been on us. And that's the part we can fix, the part we have to fix."


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"We know we are capable of winning these types of down-to-the-wire games. We've done it plenty of times.

"What we really need to do is stop allowing games to get to that point. When we get up on a team, we have to put our foot on their throat and not let up."

"After Wednesday's loss, he praised James and then made a point to mention his team's shoddy defensive effort after halftime, when the Hawks actually led by a point.

"I wasn't so much looking for offense," Woodson said. "I mean defensively, in the third and fourth quarter, we were awful. I thought we succumbed to them from a defensive standpoint.