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Boozer pushes Smith’s buttons

Does Atlanta want to win this Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Bulls?

Of course.

But that’s not the only thing the Hawks are trying to win — and it helps to explain why the Bulls blew away the visitors in the fourth quarter for a 95-83 Game 5 win Tuesday night at United Center.

Take Atlanta wunderkind Josh Smith, for example.

While he, too, wants to deliver the Hawks’ first second-round series victory in eons, he also seemed concerned about defending his manhood and making sure the NBA didn’t cheat him out of any blocked shots.

With 4:04 left in the third quarter, the Bulls’ Carlos Boozer put a forearm into Smith’s jaw after the high-flying Hawk dunked in transition to give Atlanta its first lead.

Rather than ignore the calculated shot, Smith shoved Boozer in the back. The officials gave each of them technicals.

“He just cleared me with an elbow to the jaw,” Smith said. “Nobody’s going to do that to me. I don’t care who you are. I’m a man first.”

Boozer, who was trailing the play and landed his no-look shot as Smith descended from the rim, claimed it was “two guys going at it.”

Smith wasn’t buying.

“Yeah, it was intentional,” he said. “I’m not going to let nobody get to me.”

Yet it certainly seemed like Boozer’s maneuver got to Smith because he turned into a different player after the incident.

Coming off a remarkable 23-point, 16-rebound, 8-assist effort in Game 4, Smith started out doing the right things in Game 5.

While Luol Deng got off to a strong start offensively against Smith, the Hawks forward drew 3 offensive fouls from the Bulls in the opening 14 minutes. He resisted the urge to take low-percentage jumpers. He stayed in the post offensively.

Smith tried just two long jumpers (missed 3-pointers late in the second quarter and early in the third) before the offsetting technical fouls.

Afterward, he tried a handful of unguarded 20-footers as the Bulls allowed him plenty of room to loft his lefty floaters.

To be fair, he wasn’t the only Hawk who went AWOL in the game’s key stretch.

“The fourth quarter, I felt we completely lost our composure offensively,” Atlanta coach Larry Drew said. “I told the guys a bad shot is just as good as a turnover.”

Smith finished 6 of 14 from the field for 16 points to go with 7 rebounds and 1 assist.

He also was credited with zero blocks, which seemed absurd because he swatted 2 shots during a 20-second fourth-quarter flurry.

Not only did he reject Derrick Rose’s driving layup, he turned away Luol Deng’s layup after an Atlanta turnover on an outlet pass.

Smith rejected Ronnie Brewer’s follow-up, too, but was whistled for goaltending as he brought up his hand through the rim.

In any case, Smith saw the final stat sheet and appeared ready to mention it ... only to be told by an Atlanta official that the league already had been called about the stats snafu.