"It was one of those nights where Raja was like, 'No way. The hell with it. I'll worry about the pain after,"' Wallace said. "He did a great job today."

Charlotte built a 77-56 lead on Bell's 3-pointer midway through the third quarter.

"Right now it aches a little bit, but when you get a good adrenaline flow going it really only hurts when it's a situational thing," Bell said.

Murray seemed to have an extra incentive against the Hawks. He scored seven points in the final 90 seconds of the third quarter and gave Charlotte an outside scoring threat it was desperately missing.

Before the game, Woodson said he would have liked to re-sign Murray, who averaged 12.2 points last season, even after acquiring Crawford.

"He said he wanted me to come there but management never said it. Management never reached out to me during the summer," Murray said. "I had fun there for the year I was there. It was unfortunate that today's game was against them when I came back."

He helped jump-start the offense, which also got improved play from Tyson Chandler. He had 10 points and 10 rebounds, including a thunderous alley-oop dunk on a feed from D.J. Augustin to open the fourth quarter and the Hawks never recovered.

Wallace had 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting, but had another big game on the glass four nights after grabbing a career-high 20 rebounds. Charlotte held a 55-35 rebounding edge.

"I can't make a shot so I might as well rebound," Wallace said.

Bobcats coach Larry Brown called the Hawks "probably the most athletic team in the league" before the game, but there were slow chasing the ball and Charlotte hit 11 of 18 3-pointers.

Atlanta was 2 of 16 from 3-point range.

"Ain't no way this team is 20-some points better than us," Johnson said. "It can't continue to go like this."

NOTES: Referee Michael Smith hit Woodson with a technical foul in the third quarter. ... Hawks trainer Wally Blase, who tracks fouls, alertly hustled to the scoring table in the second quarter when they incorrectly had four fouls on the Bobcats, not five. It put Josh Smith to the line. ... Brown praised Woodson's job in turning around a team that won 13 games in his first season. "They gave their coach a chance to grow with those kids," Brown said.