A Boston sweep for the Hawks

Joe Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks lays in a basket against Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics.

The surprising Atlanta Hawks completed their first season sweep of the Boston Celtics in 11 years, posting a 100-91 home victory in an Eastern Conference showdown on Friday. Joe Johnson scored 16 of his 27 points in the final quarter to help the Hawks leapfrog the Celtics in the race for second place in the East with their fourth win of the campaign over Boston. Cleveland hold top spot.

"We won't stick our chests out yet, but we can stand straight up and look them eye-to-eye," Atlanta's Jamal Crawford said after the victory. "It shows we don't fear anybody. I think it shows our growth that we can take a team's best punch and come back and win." Crawford, who the Boston coach Doc Rivers said before the game needed to be stopped, had 28 points as Atlanta also moved a half-game clear of the Orlando Magic.

"I was kind of fired up," Crawford said, "but I wasn't too worried about it. "They can knock me down, and I'll get back up. I know my teammates have got my back." He had 11 points and four assists in 13 minutes after coming off the bench in the first quarter of a physical game. "They thought they were going to come in and bully us," the Atlanta forward Mo Evans said. "We had that same mentality. We were going to be physical and protect our home court."

"Bodies were flying around everywhere," added the Hawks' coach, Mike Woodson. Paul Pierce led Boston's scoring with a season-high 35 points. The Celtics scored 32 points in the third quarter to pull within a point at 74-73, but an 11-4 run to start the fourth secured the win for Atlanta. Rivers, was full of praise for the Hawks. "I don't really know if we could have won the game tonight, the way the Hawks were playing," he said. "Especially coming off a back-to-back, this is a tough team to play."

Meanwhile, the Western Conference-leading Los Angeles Lakers had Kobe Bryant to thank for their 99-91 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. Bryant contributed 24 points, with the Lakers turning up the heat in the second quarter which they won 32-24. Allen Iverson had 23 for the 76ers, including 15 in the third period, and Bryant said he had enjoyed his duel with Iverson. "He's a scorer, he and I both," he said. "That's what we do. We can score when we're 70 years old."

Iverson said of Bryant: "It's evident that he is one of the best ever to do it. He goes out there night in and night out and plays the same way every night." Luol Deng scored 26 points as the Chicago Bulls had a 108-106 overtime win over the New Orleans Hornets. The Hornets had made up an 11-point deficit in the final quarter to force overtime. Derrick Rose chipped in with 18 points for the Bulls, while David West led New Orleans with 29.

It was a fifth successive win for the Bulls and Deng said that the result summed up the attitude of the Chicago squad. "When you're winning, everything is positive," he said. "We're going into games expecting to win. A game like that, if we had lost four in a row, we might have lost it. But the mentality right now is we can win every game." * With agencies