ATLANTA — Josh Smith came up big when the Atlanta Hawks needed him.
Playing to the crowd and energizing his teammates as leading scorer Joe Johnson watched the game with an injured knee, Smith knew his performance was the reason Atlanta held off the hard-charging Oklahoma City Thunder.
Smith scored 13 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter and Jeff Teague added 16 as Atlanta snapped the Thunder’s seven-game winning streak with a 97-90 win Saturday night.
Kevin Durant finished with 35 points, going 14-of-17 on free throws, and Russell Westbrook had 25 points for league-best Oklahoma City.
Smith, who matched a season high in scoring and pulled down seven of his 12 rebounds in the fourth, had dunks on consecutive possessions to give the Hawks an 87-79 lead with 4:43 remaining.
Then, after forcing Durant to commit a turnover and pounding his fist against his chest with 3:04 left, Smith matched Durant’s 3-pointer to put Atlanta up 92-88 at the two-minute mark.
One minute later, Smith drove past Serge Ibaka on the right side and rolled in a left-handed hook to make it 95-90. His efforts helped the Hawks win their second straight.
“I was just real focused,” Smith said. “I wanted to be the guy to try to will us to win this game. I was able to find some cracks in their defense and put the ball in the hole.”
The Thunder, looking to reach eight straight wins for the first time since February 2010, briefly rallied from its biggest deficit, 11 points on two free throws by Marvin Williams at the 2:15 mark of the second quarter, when Cole Aldrich’s two free throws put Oklahoma City up 71-70 near the end of the third.
“When they grabbed that lead, we knew we still were in the ballgame,” Smith said. “We didn’t want to hang our heads and have bad body language. We were able to come out and play a good basketball game tonight.”
Durant missed four of his first five shots from the field before faking out Marvin Williams at the top of the key and hitting a 3-pointer that cut the lead to 51-45 in the final seconds of the first half.
“We’ve won so many games down the stretch, and to lose this one, it’s tough, but it’s the luck of the draw, man,” Durant said. “We’ve got to move on.”
