ATLANTA (Ticker) -- Shareef Abdur-Rahim had a big second quarter, but it was his basket in the fourth quarter that helped the Atlanta Hawks pull away.
Abdur-Rahim scored a season-high 34 points and pulled down 12 rebounds to lead the Hawks to a 95-83 victory over the Miami Heat.
The Heat trailed by 18 points after the third quarter but used a 20-3 run over the first 6 1/2 minutes of the final period to get within 74-73. Atlanta responded with seven straight points to put away the game, including Abdur-Rahim's jumper with 2:55 left that made it 80-73.
"I'm glad we held on to an 18-point lead," Atlanta coach Terry Stotts said. "Miami is a very physical team who likes to play hard, and we had to match that."
Atlanta squandered 16-point leads in each of its previous two games, a 94-89 loss to Detroit and a 99-97 setback to Toronto.
"Their comeback helped us deal with that monkey and get it off our back," Abdur-Rahim said. "It was definitely a must-win for us."
Abdur-Rahim scored 12 points in the second quarter, but the Hawks led just 44-43 at halftime. He had seven more points and four rebounds in the third period as the Hawks outscored the Heat, 27-10, and looked like they would run away.
"We came out aggressive and played our style of basketball," said Atlanta guard Jason Terry, who scored seven of his 21 points in the third quarter. "And defensively, we were all over them."
Terry added eight assists and Stephen Jackson scored 15 points for the Hawks, who got a third straight double-double from Abdur-Rahim.
"Shareef Abdur-Rahim just kicked our butts," Miami coach Stan Van Gundy said. "We couldn't keep him from getting the ball in the paint and when he got it, we had no one to play him down low."
Eddie Jones collected 11 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough as the Heat went down to their fourth straight road loss.
"Our third quarters have been bad all year," Van Gundy said. "This one was the worst, and we still haven't found anything to solve it."
Atlanta won despite shooting 39 percent (33-of-84) from the field, in part because of a 52-45 rebounding advantage. Nazr Mohammed, who was scoreless in 18 minutes off the bench, grabbed 10 boards for the Hawks.
