Mike Woodson Still Believes

It appears to be a lost cause, but the Hawks’ coach still has hope. He may be alone in that: “Only the strong survive. I truly believe that in playoff basketball,’ Woodson said Sunday, his weary eyes betraying his bravado the morning after a back-breaking 15-point Game 3 loss Saturday night. ‘Right now, we’ve been hit. I like the way we played [in Game 3], though. We didn’t quit. We kept playing. And a great team beat us. Do we throw in the towel for Game 4? Hell, no, we shouldn’t do that. I’m going to push our guys to make sure they don’t throw in the towel. Because if we force another game … anything can happen…’I don’t know what we’ve got left,’ Joe Johnson said as he walked to his car after practice. ‘Hopefully, we’ll play with a little fire and not let them close it out on our home court. But I don’t know.'”