What a game. I'm sitting here at my apartment finishing up my postgame duties, and I am just amazed at what has happened the past 3 days. From where we were coming home after Game 2 to where we are now, it's just night and day. I'm trying to think of an adjective to describe the win and the energy in the building, but the Thesaurus is failing me, so I am forced to make up my own words. It was spectnomenal. It was fantasterful. It was ricoculous.

I don't ever want to hear anyone questioning Joe Johnson's credentials again, not that you'll hear much of that after tonight's performance. 20 points in the 4th? Against the best defense in the league with Defensive Player of the Year roaming the middle? It's not like JJ was coasting for uncontested layups (though he did hit a memorable 3-pointer after putting Leon Powe on the deck with a crossover). As Kenny Smith said on TNT's Inside the NBA, those were Kobe-esque shots he was hitting. But boy did he hit them, one after another until the game was over and the scoreboard read Good Guys Some, Bad Guys Less.

You know what the best part of all this is? People are paying attention to the Hawks. No one is talking about us in negative way, cracking jokes at our expense, they are simply talking about the basketball being played on the court and how the team is performing.

Let me share something with you. I have worked at TNT during the playoffs the last two seasons logging postgame audio, and I watched literally every single press conference after each game. Every game was basically the same - each coach would come to the podium, and then one, two, or sometimes three players from each team would follow if it had been really crazy.

After Game 1 of this series in Boston, Doc Rivers came to the podium, as did a couple Celtics players, and Mike Woodson - but no Atlanta players. None. It made me mad. I started asking people jokingly, "if the Hawks played in the forest and no one was around, would they make a sound?"

Well guess what - people are paying attention now. We are it - we are the big story in the NBA Playoffs right now. Check the front page of ESPN, SI.com, you name it - we are the team everyone is looking at and trying to figure out where they came from.

I'm not surprised the Hawks won tonight. They played well in Game 3, and with yet another raucous crowd on hand, I didn't think a win was out of the question. What did amaze me was the WAY they won. Between coming back from Boston's opening 16-3 salvo (it didn't even take a quarter!), and then battling back the way they did in the fourth, Atlanta showed some intestinal fortitude I'm not sure I've seen from them this season and I am certain Boston didn't think they had. Zaza Pachulia's dust-up with Kevin Garnett may not have lasted more than a few seconds, but it perfectly encapsulated this series. The Celtics tried to push the Hawks around, but Atlanta showed they weren't afraid to go toe-to-toe.

Success in the playoffs is a fickle thing. Boston leaves home after two straight wins full of confidence, fully expecting to come to Atlanta and finish the series. Now they head back to Beantown and they've got to be questioning themselves just a little. Outside of the big three and Rondo tonight, no one really stood out. Their bench gave them nothing save a couple threes from James Posey, and the Hawks looked fresher, quicker, and more athletic.

Meanwhile the Hawks are the underdogs with nothing to lose. Getting one win was already a victory - getting two? Forget about it. It's house money now. If they can figure out a way to get something (anything) going early in Game 5, it will be very interesting to see if that thought starts to creep into the Celtics collective psyche - "What if we really did lose?"

It's far from over, and the Celtics have the homecourt advantage in their favor. But it's much more interesting than it was a few days ago, isn't it?

Congrats to the Hawks on a huge win, and hopefully they can keep the momentum rolling in Boston on Wednesday night.