Joe Johnson scored a season-high 41 points to lift the high flying Atlanta Hawks to a 129-117 National Basketball Association victory over the Chicago Bulls.
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ATLANTA, Georgia (AFP) - |
Joe Johnson scored a season-high 41 points to lift the high flying Atlanta Hawks to a 129-117 National Basketball Association victory over the Chicago Bulls.
Josh Smith posted a season-best 24 points, while Mike Bibby scored 17 points and Marvin Williams chipped in 16 and eight rebounds for the Hawks, who continued to show their dominance on their home floor.
The Hawks have won six of seven on their current eight-game homestand to improve to 13-2 in Atlanta this season.
"Any game that you can play that is high scoring is fun," Johnson said. "But you always want to be on the winning side."
Ben Gordon scored 33 points and rookie Derrick Rose added 27 for the Bulls, who have lost four of their last five games.
Gordon also surpassed Scottie Pippen as Chicago's all-time leader in 3-pointers.
He was 6-of-8 from 3-point range to take his total to 669, passing Pippen's mark of 664.
"It's a nice accomplishment," Gordon said. "But when you lose, it doesn't really mean anything."
Chicago's Andres Nocioni drained a 3-pointer with 7:15 to play to cut the gap to 107-105.
But the Hawks put the game away with a 16-7 scoring run.
"Our offense was solid tonight," Atlanta coach Mike Woodson said. "It was probably the best it has been all season. Everybody was clicking on all cylinders. It was an offensive performance tonight on both sides of the ball."
The win was the seventh in eight games for the Hawks, who have been lifted by their All-Star Johnson.
Four nights after recording his second career triple-double in Atlanta's 99-88 win over the lowly Oklahoma City Thunder, Johnson was two points shy of his career best.
"Everybody was making a big deal of (my career-high numbers)," Johnson said. "They were telling me to get back on the end of the floor and shoot free throws. The main thing was that we were going to get the win, and that was it."