After win, Hawks in no mood to turn down the volume

KEVIN GARNETT He's sticking to business

ATLANTA -The Hawks continue to squawk.

First, forwards Josh Smith and Josh Childress did a little trash-talking before the first-round playoff series against the Celtics.

Next, Atlanta guard Mike Bibby described Celtics fans as "fair-weather" and "bandwagon." And a day after the Hawks landed their first victory of the series with a 102-93 win in Game 3 Saturday night, guard Joe Johnson said he thought the Celtics gave up in the fourth quarter.

"In the fourth quarter, they couldn't make a run on us," Johnson said at yesterday's practice at Philips Arena. "They come down and we get stops and we come down and score and we were making big shot after big shot, [so] I thought they finally just kind of gave up a little bit.

"We were on top of our game. When we play like that, I think we're one of the best teams in the league."

The Celtics and Hawks have been engaging in a lot of trash-talking, which is expected in a playoff series. But off the floor, the Hawks have been doing a lot of talking while the Celtics have been giving them respect.

Boston forward Paul Pierce said his team wouldn't get caught up in the Hawk talk.

"We're just moving on," Pierce said. "Game 4 is next [tonight at Philips Arena]. That's it. They are just trying to screw you up and get you caught up in that game. But we're veterans and we are not going to get caught up in that."

When asked if the Celtics took the Hawks lightly in Game 3, coach Doc Rivers said: "I don't know. If we did, we couldn't do that again. They played great. They played aggressive. They played hard. They beat us to every loose ball.

"We talked about the 50-50 thing in terms of loose balls. There is a 50-50 chance either team could get the ball. I don't know that we got one. It might have been a 90-10 thing [Saturday night]. On the road, you have to win that war."

Snappy answers

The last Celtic to depart from the team's lengthy film session yesterday at a ballroom in the team hotel was forward Kevin Garnett.

In the aftermath of their Game 3 loss, the intense Garnett seemed a bit short with the media as he snapped at some questions and asked a photographer not to take his picture up close.

Although Garnett answered questions for five minutes, he ended the interview session abruptly when he was asked how he felt when he woke up yesterday morning following the defeat.

"Ya'll take it easy," Garnett said before walking off. "You're pulling questions out of [the air] now."

A bit too sweet?

Rivers jokingly described the film session as "an ice cream social. We had some ice cream with M&Ms and sprinkles on top. That's how we played." . . . Don Casey, a former Celtics assistant and ex-Clippers and Nets coach, is giving the Hawks some defensive pointers, specializing in his forte, the zone defense. "Just to get Boston to think a little bit," he said. Casey is the author of "Temple of Zones," and is known for his expertise in the area . . . Hawks coach Mike Woodson on the afterglow of the Game 3 win at sold-out Philips Arena: "To see people come out and see our guys respond the way they did, that's huge for the city."

Marc J. Spears can be reached at mspears@globe.com; Peter May of the Globe staff contributed to this report.