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Peachtree Hoops: Hawks beat Pistons 121-113 on a career-night for Jalen Johnson

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Detroit Pistons v Atlanta Hawks
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

A triple-double for Johnson just gets the Hawks over the finish line.

On a cool April Wednesday, with just over a week remaining in the 2023-24 regular season, the Atlanta Hawks (35-40) were back on their home-court to square off against the Detroit Pistons (13-62).

For the Hawks, a win would see them move neck-and-neck with the Chicago Bulls for the 9-seed in the Eastern Conference standings while a loss would drop them to a game behind the Bulls with six games left to play for each team.

As Chicago owns the tiebreaker* against them, the Hawks would need to have a better record than the Bulls in order to secure home-court advantage in a 9/10 Play-In matchup, giving every remaining game a bit more importance.

*With a 2-1 record against the Hawks this season

There were a couple of last-minute lineup changes in the buildup to this one. Cade Cunningham was downgraded to ‘Out’ for Detroit and was replaced by Marcus Sasser in their starting lineup. Jalen Johnson made his return to the starting five for Atlanta, replacing Vit Krejci.

Just like in his return to the rotation on Monday night, it did not take long for Johnson to make his presence felt — slamming down his first two shots of the game.

The Pistons’ youth was on full display early on, shooting poorly from the floor while racking up three turnovers in the first six minutes, and the Hawks jumped out to an early 15-6 lead.

De’Andre Hunter continued his aggressive play as of late, knocking down this pretty mid-range jumper over Jaden Ivey.

Despite the good start though, Atlanta took their foot off their gas over the second half of the quarter and the Pistons’ bench unit took advantage — knotting the game at 23 with just under 2:00 to go in the first.

Free-throws from Jalen Johnson followed by a three from rookie, Kobe Bufkin gave Atlanta a 28-23 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Kobe Bufkin continued to cook to start the 2nd quarter, knocking down a step-back ‘middie’ over Malachi Flynn to put Atlanta up by four.

Flynn however, would not be outdone, getting off to a smoking-hot start himself (17 points on 5-for-6 shooting off the bench) to help Detroit tie the game at 39 midway through the 2nd.

After a timeout from Quin Snyder, Atlanta seemed to regain their focus over the back half of the quarter.

Jalen Johnson found Murray in transition for a highlight-reel alley-oop.

Bogdan Bogdanovic hit Clint Capela under the basket for an easy slam just before the break.

All in all, it was a 20-11 run from Atlanta to close out the half, giving the home team a 59-50 lead at the break.

Both sides struggled from the perimeter in the first half, with Atlanta shooting 5-of-20 (25%) and Detroit shooting just 3-of-11 (27.3%) from beyond the arc.

Murray and Hunter led the way for the Hawks with 14 and 13 points respectively. Jalen Johnson was back to his usual ‘stat sheet stuffing’ ways, racking up nine points, six assists, five rebounds, three steals, a block and just one turnover in the first half.

Atlanta started the second half on the right foot, going on a quick 11-5 run, including two threes from Hunter and Bogdanovic, to force Detroit into an early timeout.

Atlanta did not let up the intensity, extending their lead to 20 after this Garrison Matthews three at the 5:30 mark.

However, similar to the first half, a Malachi Flynn-led run helped Detroit regain their footing in the game. Flynn scored 14 points in the quarter, bringing his total to 31 on the game.

While this slam from Jalen Johnson helped to stop the bleeding, Atlanta only led 92-79 going into the final frame after leading by as many as 22 in the third quarter.

It was a back-and-forth start to the 4th quarter.

Jalen Johnson assisted Garrison Matthews in the left corner for a three — giving Johnson his first career triple-double (!!) and extending the Hawks’ lead to 14.

However back-to-back buckets from Flynn cut Atlanta’s lead to 10 with just under 9:00 to play.

Both team’s continued to trade buckets as the quarter went on.

An and-one from James Wiseman cut Atlanta’s lead to seven. Then, buckets from Murray and Matthews widened the gap to 12 before two consecutive Hawks’ turnovers gift-wrapped four points for Detroit, forcing a frustrated Snyder to call for timeout.

Out of the timeout, Flynn and Murray traded threes before Johnson and Capela connected for an alley-oop slam to give Atlanta a 10-point lead with just over 4:00 remaining.

At the 1:27 mark, Jalen Johnson appeared to put this one out of reach, knocking down an 11-footer to put the Hawks back up by 10. However, Malachi Flynn nearly had different plans — hitting a three after a Murray miss then coming up with a steal and score to miraculously cut the Hawks’ lead to 118-113 with 30 seconds to play.

Flynn’s magic ran out though, and free throws from Murray and Johnson saw the Hawks go home with a 121-113 victory.

Jalen Johnson finished with a monster stat line of 28 points (10-for-14 from the floor, 2-for-4 from three), 14 rebounds and 11 assists. De’Andre Hunter scored 26 points on an extremely efficient 11-for-16 shooting (3-for-6 from three) from the field. Dejounte Murray (24 points, 11 assists) and Clint Capela (11 points, 16 rebounds) each had double-doubles.

It’s a quick turnaround for Atlanta, as they will be back in action tomorrow night to take on Dallas. Tipoff for that one is at 7:30pm on Bally Sport Southeast.

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