BOSTON –– For nearly every player on the Atlanta Hawks roster, last night’s playoff elimination game against the Boston Celtics was the biggest of their lives.

But for some reason, the Hawks laid an egg.

Atlanta came out flat, never regrouped, and were embarrassed, 99-65.

“This is the biggest game of all of our careers, and we just didn’t come to play tonight,” Atlanta All-Star guard Joe Johnson said.

And he didn’t stop there.

“Supposedly it was all out on the line tonight and we didn’t do anything tonight,” Johnson said. “We acted like this was just a regular game and we didn’t come to play at all. [The Celtics] were more physical than us and they just really outplayed us tonight. We didn’t really put forth the effort.”

Atlanta forward Marvin Williams said, “It’s a tough way [to end the season]. It’s very disappointing. We played so well at home, but we just couldn’t figure it out up here in Boston.”

The Hawks won all three of the games in the series on its home court, but were outscored by the Celtics by 25.3 points per game in Boston.

It appears from the outside looking in that Atlanta forward Josh Smith was just happy to play in Game Seven against Boston.

“We proved a lot of people wrong,” Smith said. “We got on the stage where people know who we are, and we just weren’t able to get over that hump to be able to shock the world. It’s OK, though. I think we shocked the world enough. I mean guys out there in the world know us, and know what we are capable of doing. We are a hard-working team and it shows on the court, but today we just couldn’t make any shots.”

The 65 points that Atlanta scored was the second-lowest playoff total in the shot-clock era. The Hawks were limited to 63 points by Detroit in 1999. In addition, the 34-point loss tied the third-largest playoff losing margin in the shot-clock era.

Atlanta scored only 26 first-half points, which is a Boston playoff record for fewest points allowed in the first half, and a new Hawks record for fewest points scored in a half. The previous mark was 27 by both teams.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Boston limited Atlanta to just 10 second-quarter points, a playoff low for Atlanta.

“On the road, you have to be disciplined and you have to be dedicated, and we were neither one of those tonight,” Johnson said.

The Hawks’ hardships were partly theirs to blame, and partly because the Celtics came out intense, played tremendous defense, and shot 47.6 percent from the field in the game while forcing 16 turnovers.

Boston limited Atlanta to 29.3-percent shooting (24-for-82). The 24 shots that Atlanta made tied for the third-fewest field goals in the playoffs in the shot-clock era.

“The only thing we can take out of this series is that we are pretty good at home,” Johnson said. “Other than that, we did nothing on the road. We got defeated by 25 or 30 points here in Boston every night.”

roblee@projo.com