76ers defeat Hawks, close in on Eastern Conference's fifth seed

The bones of Wednesday night's 105-100 win by the 76ers over the Atlanta Hawks at the Wells Fargo Center were even more impressive than the outward flash.

A quick glance will show you the sparkle of that final quarter: the three-pointers by shooting guard Jodie Meeks, the slashing to the rim by combo guard Lou Williams, the pop-from-the-floor energy of Thaddeus Young. All of this dazzling second-half basketball was nicely wrapped in a 33-11 run during which the Sixers deftly navigated away from the cliff - they trailed by 11 points late in the third quarter - and pushed themselves past the flailing Hawks.

But there was also a certain meatiness to Wednesday's victory, an essence that statistics cannot easily reflect.

Take Meeks, whose most salient play came without the ball. On a night when his steady stream of three-pointers, five in all, routinely sliced into Atlanta's double-digit leads, it was a vicious cross screen with 10 minutes, 14 seconds left in the game that made one wonder if this team's foundation stretches deeper than initially thought.

Meeks hunted down Young's defender and knocked him off the play. Young immediately finished an easy little hook shot that boosted the Sixers' lead to 83-80.

"I tried to do it as well as I could to get him open," said Meeks, adding that this play was better than any of his three-pointers. "It kind of hurt a little bit, but I did my job. Thad gave me some love, and Coach did, too."

Doug Collins, the coach, said that, for him, the win was one of the most gratifying of the season. He called the team's play "damn good basketball."

And it was.

In the second half, the Sixers held the Hawks to 41 points. For the game, the Sixers shot 48.8 percent from the floor, 55.6 percent (10 for 18) from three, outrebounded the Hawks by 40-39, collected 22 assists, and committed only six turnovers.

Among the team's remaining dozen games, only a few are as transparently important as Wednesday's: The Sixers and Hawks are smashed together near the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Hawks are fifth, the Sixers sixth, and enough games remain for the two teams to switch places. Wednesday's win, which leaves the Sixers only 21/2 games behind the Hawks, made that a possibility.

The Sixers improved to 37-34. The Hawks, coming off Tuesday night's blowout loss at home to the Chicago Bulls, dropped to 40-32.

"We're just excited the way we're playing right now, winning games," Williams said. "We're in control of our own destiny."

Williams and Young combined for 33 points on 12-for-20 shooting. Atlanta's bench contributed a total of 14 points.

"Every man through," Collins said of his 10-man rotation. "I think our depth was the difference in the game."

There were killer screens and smooth shooting and well-executed basketball, but there was also the belief - among the Sixers as well as many at the arena - that even a double-digit lead against a good team could be conquered, that better basketball would replace those early, sloppy minutes.