(Saturday, January 5th)

Final Score: New Jersey 113, Atlanta 107

Atlanta, GA (Sports Network) - Vince Carter scored 29 points and keyed a second-half surge as the New Jersey Nets won their fifth straight, outlasting the Atlanta Hawks, 113-107, at Philips Arena.

Richard Jefferson added 21 and New Jersey got a 17-point, 12-rebound performance from Josh Boone, as well as the seventh triple-double of the season from Jason Kidd, who finished with 10 points, 14 rebounds and 13 assists.

Fifteen unanswered points to start the fourth quarter gave the Nets the lead for good, and they held off a late Hawks rally to secure the win.

Josh Smith had a game-high 34 to lead Atlanta, which has dropped four straight. Marvin Williams contributed 18 to go with eight rebounds, while Josh Childress chipped in 16 and seven boards and Anthony Johnson had 14 to go with 10 assists.

"It's good that you have the points," said Smith. "But at the same time, you want to get a win to top it off. That's what makes it exciting. We weren't able to get the win tonight. We controlled the first half and came back in the second half and let them get too many runs. I know this league is about runs, but we kind of let them have too many, and the biggest one was towards the end of the game."

New Jersey's lead was 105-95 with 3:09 remaining, but Smith scored on a drive, and Childress converted a lay-in, pulling the Hawks within six. When Johnson scored in transition to cap an 8-0 spurt, it was a 105-103 game with 1:06 still on the clock.

Carter responded by draining a jumper from the elbow, and Jefferson thwarted a must-have possession for the Hawks, partially blocking Smith's from the left block. Boone then slammed home the backbreaker off a dish from Jefferson at the other end, making it a six-point game with 19.9 ticks remaining.

Bostjan Nachbar finished with 16 points for the Nets, while rookie Sean Williams ended up with 15 points and five rebounds.

"We knew what we had to do," said Boone. "We knew that we just needed to stop their fastbreak. They were obviously killing us on the fastbreak. We needed to stay in our offense and get good shots. We were able to get good shots as long as we ran through the offense."

Atlanta's leading scorer, Joe Johnson, was limited to nine points on 4-of-16 shooting before fouling out, though he did pull down eight boards and handed out eight assists.

The Hawks led 18-11 midway through the first, and went to the second holding a 27-22 lead. Smith's bucket off a dish in transition from Acie Law with 9:38 to go in the half extended the Hawks edge to 39-25, capping a 12-3 run to open the second. New Jersey scored the next six unanswered though, and closed to within 57-50 by the break.

The Nets used a 14-2 third-quarter run to take a 67-61 lead, only to see the Hawks rip off 12 of the final 15 in the period and regain a 79-76 lead going to the fourth.

Kidd's three-pointer jumpstarted a 15-0 New Jersey run to begin the fourth quarter, seemingly putting the Nets in control down the stretch. Carter's putback dunk capped the spurt, making it 91-79 with just over eight minutes left.

Game Notes

Atlanta has lost four in a row to New Jersey...Kidd now has 96 triple-doubles in his career, good for sixth on the all-time list...New Jersey shot just 65.2 percent (30-for-46) from the foul line, while the Hawks went 23-for-33 (69.7 percent)...Atlanta had 21 turnovers and New Jersey had 17.

01/06 01:04:55 ET