NEW YORK -- Two years ago, the Atlanta Hawks won 60 games. Four of those starters are now elsewhere and until 24 hours ago, Paul Millsap was a candidate to be on another team in the near future.

Inside the Hawks' locker room, the mentality is simple. What distractions? What trade rumors?

Millsap is aware of the chatter but for the last two weeks, the Hawks are on their best run of the season and it continued Tuesday night with a wire-to-wire 117-97 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.

"It's tough, it's tough," Millsap said of the rumors. "It says a lot about this team though. We don't let the outside distractions get to us. We're steady focused on winning basketball games and getting better."

Millsap helped the Hawks finish off their season-high seventh straight victory with 14 points and did it despite missing his first eight shots. He put the finishing touches on Atlanta's third double-digit victory of this streak with four jumpers in a span of a 2:25 to push a 15-point lead to 104-83 with 4:20 left.

"The fourth quarter, he kind of put the nail in the coffin," Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer said. "He made three or four straight jumpers and just kind of put the game away for us. He's just a special player, very special."

Millsap's quick finish came a day after the Hawks decided to stop shopping the veteran forward around. It also helped give the Hawks four seven-game winning streaks in Budenholzer's four seasons, which included the 19-game run two years ago with DeMarre Carroll, Al Horford, Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver along with Millsap.

Before Millsap finished off the latest win, others played key roles.

Dennis Schroder recorded his fifth double-double with 19 points and 10 assists, including an assist on each Millsap jumper in the fourth. Dwight Howard reached his 25th double-double by halftime and collected 14 points and 16 rebounds in 27 minutes.

Six players reached double figures for the Hawks, who opened the season 9-2 but dropped 10 of their next 11 until beating Miami on Dec. 7.

Kris Humphries added 13 points while Malcolm Delaney and Thabo Sefolosha contributed 12 and 10 respectively as Atlanta shot 47.8 percent and held a 53-48 edge on the glass.

Across the sideline was another reminder of the 60-win team for Atlanta. The Hawks faced former assistant Kenny Atkinson for the first time but had little difficulties handing the Nets (8-29) a seventh straight loss.

"Everybody's happy for him," Schroder said. "It's still kind of weird to play against him."

Atkinson watched his team shoot 40 percent, trail by as many as 27 and allow 28 points off 18 turnovers.

"I wish we were a little more competitive, but again I have an intimate knowledge of how they play and the players they have," Atkinson said. "We're going to look at the tape and watch it to see if we can pick up some things. They set the bar high and we can look at it and say someday we'd like to strive to be a similar program but we have a lot of work to do."

Brook Lopez led the Nets with 15 of his 20 points after halftime, but it was not nearly enough against one of the league's hottest teams. Bojan Bogdanovic added 16 points and Sean Kilpatrick contributed 14.

"They came ready to play and I think most importantly they did a good job playing within each other," Lopez said.

The Hawks led by double-digits for the final 32:56 and took control by holding the Nets to 14 points in the second quarter en route to a 61-43 halftime lead. Brooklyn cut it 68-58 on a basket by Kilpatrick with about 6 1/2 minutes left in the third but Atlanta took n 86-70 lead into the fourth before Millsap finished it off

NOTES: Nets F Trevor Booker (left hip contusion) missed his second game of the season due to injury or illness. ... G/F Mike Dunleavy Jr. passed his physical Tuesday afternoon. Coach Mike Budenholzer said when he met with Dunleavy, he told him that he was a player the Hawks always coveted. ... Budenholzer picked up the tab for dinner Monday night in Brooklyn with Nets coach and his former assistant Kenny Atkinson. ... The Nets signed F Quincy Acy to a 10-day contract. Acy said he is working to expand his offense away from the rim recently and thought it was among the reasons the Nets signed him to replace the roster spot of F Anthony Bennett. Acy became the 18th player used by the Nets when he played the final 1:18.... Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of Brooklyn firing coach Lionel Hollins and re-assigning GM Billy King.