<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> Jacque Vaughn had a feeling it might be a good night during the shootaround. "He had that rhythm going," teammate Jason Terry said. Vaughn kept it going in the game, hitting his first eight shots and scoring a career-high 23 points Tuesday to lead the Atlanta Hawks past the Denver Nuggets, 112-98. "The first one felt good. The second one felt good," Vaughn said. "After that, the rest of them felt good, too." The Hawks snapped a four-game losing streak and set a season high for points. Vaughn, who was averaging just 4.5 points a game, finished 9-of-13 from the field, setting a career high for field goals and eclipsing his previous best of 20 points. "I've never seen him shoot like that," Denver's Marcus Camby said. Vaughn insisted that he wasn't trying to fill the void caused by the suspension of Stephen Jackson, the Hawks' third-leading scorer. "You go into the game thinking like that and good things usually don't happen," Vaughn said. "When you don't force things, go with the flow, good things happen." Jackson was suspended for one game after a heated exchange with the coaching staff in Cleveland last weekend. He wasn't missed. Shareef Abdur-Rahim scored 22 points and Terry 20 -- the first time all season that Atlanta put three players in the 20s. Theo Ratliff added a season-high 12. "I had a lot of fun," Terry said. "That's what it's all about, especially when things aren't looking so good. You've got to have fun. I enjoyed myself tonight." Denver has lost two in a row for just the second time this season. The Nuggets, one of the league's most surprising teams, dropped a half-game behind Dallas and Houston for the Midwest Division lead.</div> Full Story Box Score Last time the Nuggets beat the Hawks in Atlanta, Melo was just 4 years old. Speaking of Melo, 5-20 from the field, 6 tornovers, and 5 fouls, rough weird game indeed.
