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Continuing to prove they are one of the best up and coming teams in the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday clinched their third straight playoff birth, topping the San Antonio Spurs in the best game of the Sunday slate, winning 119-114 in overtime. The team is headed back to the postseason, this time with bigger goals in mind than last season when they were swept rather easily in the second round by the Cleveland Cavs and LeBron James.

Hawks team leader Joe Johnson said making the playoffs “was one of our goals, but it’s not our main goal. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.” Sunday the Hawks got 26 points from Marvin Williams, and he had help from two other Hawks that scored over 20 points in the entertaining win over one of the better teams in the West. The win also snapped a 7-game losing streak against the Spurs.

“Great game. Tough loss,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. The Spurs got another big night from guard Manu Gibobili, who had 38 points, matching a season high. The Spurs also got 29 points and 13 rebounds from center Tim Duncan. “We know we’ve got a really tough stretch,” Ginobili said. “We made a huge effort to stay in the game, have the opportunity to win it. We couldn’t finish it.

The OT period was a great back and forth, but the Hawks finally were able to pull away, mostly due to a big extra frame from Al Horford, who had six points in overtime. He ended the night with 22 points and 18 rebounds. Johnson had 20 points with 13 assists. The Hawks scored 21 points off 13 turnovers by the Spurs.

San Antonio had their shots to win the game early, as they led by as many as 14 in the first half, but the gritty Hawks didn’t go away, and came back to pull back into the game to eventually send it into OT before getting the win. “I feel we gave this one away,” Duncan said. “With the stretch that we have, we can’t give any away. I think this was a building block because we played well, well enough to win against an elite team, but we just could not get over the hump.”

Atlanta currently is tied with Boston for third place in the Eastern Conference. They have won five of their past six games.