Jamal Crawford saw the end to his series-long shooting slump coming, making a promise after the pregame shootaround: It’ll be back tonight. Crawford then went out and finally played like the NBA’s sixth man of the year in the playoffs, scoring 24 points to help the Atlanta Hawks beat the Milwaukee Bucks 83-69 on Friday night to force a seventh game in the first-round series. “I felt like I was letting everybody down the first few games, especially the last game,” Crawford said. “I haven’t slept much the last couple of days. Usually in that situation the next game can’t come fast enough.” Crawford was coming off a miserable 4-for-18 shooting performance in Game 5, and wasn’t much better in the first four games. Now he’s looking more like the instant-offense threat he was in the regular season, and the Hawks are back from the brink of an improbable first-round exit at the hands of a team that wasn’t expected to do much in the playoffs. Hawks coach Mike Woodson told Crawford to just keep shooting. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/recap;_ylt=Atm9Re._.ubqxOd6rMo.fVi8vLYF?gid=2010043015
