ATLANTA -- Hours before the pivotal Game 5 began between the Atlanta Hawks and Boston Celtics, Paul Millsap talked about Atlanta’s penchant for blowing leads as if “a ghost keeps coming after us.”

Hours later, Millsap and the Hawks might’ve felt like they indeed were experiencing something supernatural. Except this one might haunt the Celtics for an entire summer.

After opening the game a frigid 6-for-34 shooting, the Hawks went from ice cold to searing hot in a matter of minutes. Atlanta suddenly buried 11 straight shots, erasing a 10-point deficit and going on an unbelievable tear. By the time the smoke from the Hawks’ hot hands cleared, Atlanta had outscored Boston by an absurd 74-33 from midway through the second to early in the fourth.

Boston had no idea what hit it, with Atlanta cruising to a 110-83 victory to move within one win of advancing to the second round.

“They steamrolled us,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said.

How did the Hawks go from playing so poorly to playing like world-beaters in a matter of 18 minutes or so? There are a few explanations.

Stevens credited the Hawks with playing Millsap more at center. While Millsap followed up a 45-point outing in Boston with just 10 points, he also had eight rebounds and six assists in just 27 minutes.

Atlanta head coach Mike Budenholzer thinks the Hawks are at their best when their defense sparks their offense, and Stevens noted how the Hawks stymied Isaiah Thomas by trapping him on pick-and-rolls. Thomas was scoreless at halftime and finished with seven points on 3-for-12 shooting before leaving the game with a tweaked ankle. Outside of Evan Turner’s 15 points, only three other Celtics reached double figures in points and nobody scored more than 10 points.

And even though the Celtics somehow got within 55-50 with 7 minutes, 49 seconds to go in the third quarter, Atlanta put the game away with a 29-8 run.

How hot were the Hawks? Atlanta buried 11 of 14 3-pointers and scored a total of 74 points during the second and third quarters. They also moved the ball beautifully, like it was last season all over again, recording 21 assists during the second and third quarters combined.

“[The hot shooting was] definitely contagious,” said Kent Bazemore, who hit four 3-pointers and scored 16 points. “What changed is we said just let it fly. [We] loosened up a little bit there.”

When the Hawks trailed 29-19 with 6:35 remaining in the second quarter, Millsap scored and then Mike Scott buried a 3-pointer coming out of a timeout and the floodgates opened from there.

“Sometimes … I’m not aggressive,” said Scott, who was a spark with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting. “Tonight I just saw red.”

Actually, right before Scott drilled that 3, all the Hawks and Celtics saw was purple. During a timeout with 5:41 left in the second and the Celtics up 29-21, Atlanta’s popular mascot, Harry the Hawk, did a tribute to Prince.

Harry the Hawk delivered a medley of some of Prince’s hits, opening with "Purple Rain" as Philips Arena turned Prince's favorite color. Both the Hawks and Celtics came out of that timeout early and had to wait for the mascot to finish the two-and-a-half-minute medley.

After the tribute, the Hawks caught fire, Philips Arena was “Delirious,” like one of Prince’s hits, and the Celtics never recovered.

Fittingly, when the Hawks walked off the court with Game 5 in hand, “Let’s Go Crazy” was blaring.

Now, Atlanta heads back to Boston looking to do something the franchise has never done. If the Hawks can win a playoff game in Boston for the first time in team history, they will move on to a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference finals with LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

“It is quite the turnaround,” Kyle Korver, who scored 13 points and had four of his five steals during the Hawks’ explosive third quarter, said of going from frigid to scorching shooting.

“I will gladly give all the credit to Harry and the tribute,” Korver added. “He needs to come to Boston.”