"After two potentially demoralizing losses, there was only thing the Hawks could do immediately to make it better.

Beat the Bobcats.

"We need to have some kind of sense of being mad and wanting to take it out on somebody else," Hawks forward Josh Smith said. "This will be the game to do it."

They needed yet another overtime period, but the Hawks did it. They pulled away in overtime to beat Charlotte 102-96 on Friday night.

The Hawks had lost to Miami in triple overtime Thursday night at Philips Arena. That was two days after they blew a 19-point lead and lost at Chicago.

So when Charlotte's Boris Diaw missed a 3-point try, and Joe Johnson dribbled out the clock, the Hawks were happy to get out of Charlotte with a victory and head home to face Chicago on Saturday.

"It was a huge relief," coach Larry Drew said. "I thought the guys did a really good job. I told them this game was going to be a gut check. We had triple overtime last night, got in at 3 a.m. I thought the guys gutted it out."

Smith, as promised, provided a jolt for the weary Hawks in their eighth game in 11 days."