"After Jamal Crawford banked in a 3-pointer to preserve the Hawks' victory over the Magic, coach Larry Drew slumped over the scorer's table and flashed the smile of a man who knew his team had just gotten away with something.

"I was hoping he would attack the basket," Drew said. "He was two or three feet behind the 3-point line. I didn't know if it was going in or not. I was just pretty relieved that it did go down."

Crawford's leaning, challenged shot with 5.7 seconds left provided an unlikely ending to Atlanta's 88-84 victory over the Magic on Friday at Philips Arena. The Hawks lead the best-of-seven series 2-1 with Game 4 on Sunday at home.

The Hawks survived to win an intense, physical contest that featured late ejections for Hawks center Zaza Pachulia and Magic guard Jason Richardson. They've now won five of seven games against the Magic including the regular season.

The Hawks took home-court advantage in the series by winning one of two games in Orlando and kept it with a victory in front of a rowdy, sellout home crowd.

"They are chasing us and it's first one to four," Crawford said. "But that's a good team. We know each game is going to be tough but I think we showed tonight that we can handle adversity."

The Hawks led by as many as 14 points in the second quarter but quickly gave back the advantage early in the third. The Magic were ahead 84-83 after Brandon Bass' basket with 1:01 left.

Hawks center Al Horford responded with a 21-foot jump shot, then smothered Hedo Turkoglu to force a miss on a 3-point try early in the shot clock.

"It was a horrible shot," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said."