Hawks sweep floor with Celtics

When the Hawks took the Celtics to seven games in the first round of the 2008 playoffs, they planted a seed. The team that dealt the Celtics a 100-91 loss last night, sweeping them in a season for the first time since 1998-99 (and for the first time in a four-game series since 1995-96), had matured over the last two years.

They have All-Stars such as Joe Johnson (27 points), who went from taking every shot to simply making the big ones, and Al Horford (11 points, eight rebounds), who went from a promising rookie two years ago to an All-Star today. They have veterans. They are playoff bound. And not as an eighth seed.

There is a difference, and even Celtics captain Paul Pierce acknowledged that in a matter of months when the playoffs come, it may mean something.

“Once the playoffs start it’s all 0-0,’’ Pierce said. “But you know they feel like they have the edge.’’

The Celtics had acknowledged their own flawed logic: That even though the Hawks viewed them as a rival, the feeling wasn’t mutual.

After Jamal Crawford, a mercenary brought in during the offseason to kill teams like the Celtics, broke loose for a dunk that gave him the last of his team-high 28 points and Johnson drilled a 25-footer with 33 seconds sealing the Hawks win, the Hawks’ PA announcer asked the Celtics as they trudged off the floor, “Is it a rivalry now?’’

To the Hawks, said coach Mike Woodson, “It was a playoff game.’’

The Celtics, said Rajon Rondo, couldn’t say the same thing. “I think that’s why they came out and played the way they did,’’ he said.

The Celtics jumped out to an early lead, digging a 16-7 hole for the Hawks. Pierce scored 12 of his game-high 35 points in the first quarter. But rather than collapse, the Hawks responded.

Crawford, a starter in a sixth man’s body, scored 18 points in the first half, hitting wild shot after wild shot, none crazier than the half-court hurl at the end of the first quarter that turned a 22-20 Hawks deficit into a 23-20 Hawks lead after one.

“That’s what made him feel like he couldn’t miss,’’ Rondo said.