ATLANTA, GA- It was all good for the Atlanta Hawks in the first half against the Denver Nuggets. They were making almost all of their 3-pointers, getting to the rim at ease, and most importantly, they had pretty much contained Nikola Jokic. Through that process, Jalen Johnson had done something no Hawks player has ever accomplished, recording a triple-double in the first half.
Unfortunately, that all came to an end in the second half, where the Nuggets remembered who they were and started chipping away at their deficit. A 19-point lead at halftime for the Hawks became a four-point lead midway through the third quarter, and the Nuggets put on the finishing touches in the fourth quarter, as they ended up winning 134-133.
Despite the loss, it's hard for what Johnson did to go unnoticed, as he finished the game with 21 points, 18 rebounds, and 16 assists. There's no doubt that he is continuing to get better every game, and he is turning into one of the league's young stars right before our eyes.
“From the outside looking in, I didn’t expect him to be that good of a passer and a creator,” Kristaps Porzingis said after the game. “He’s putting those numbers up consistently, and with the flow of the game. You don’t feel like he’s forcing too much. He’s just getting downhill, kicking out, getting some easy looks for us.
“He’s playing at a super high level. I’m happy to see him play like this. Just seeing him day to day and how he works and how he’s locked in on each game, you can tell he wants to be great, and I’m just here to support him.”
Johnson will tell you he's just playing his game.
“It was fun playing the way we were playing,” Johnson said. “That’s our identity. How we want to play is fast. As soon as we get stops, run. And that was just a product of that. “
Hawks fall flat in the second half against the Nuggets
Though the Nuggets had taken a double-digit lead down the stretch of the fourth quarter, the Hawks still had enough juice for one last one-run. Just like the Nuggets did to them in the third, the Hawks started knocking down some shots, while getting some key stops on the other end. They were down by as much as two points late in the game, and had a chance to either tie or take the lead, but turned the ball over.
They had one more chance to try and tie the game after that with a 3-pointer, but Nickeil Alexander-Walker had his shot blocked, then fumbled the ball for a moment before laying the ball up. What Alexander-Walker probably didn't notice throughout that chaos was that he had enough time to still pass it out to some open shooters.
“Nickeil would be the first one to say he probably could’ve kicked it out,” Porzingis said. “When he shot the first one, and Murray kind of got a piece of it, he'd probably look at the film and see he had a kick out, because I was pretty open. With me at 7’3, I could pretty much get a shot off. But even when he drove, he got in the paint, and I think he had a kick out to Vit [Krejci]. But it’s just how it goes.”
The Hawks know that in those types of situations, they have to close out teams like that when they can, but they still gave themselves a chance to win.
“I think coming out strong in the third quarter and knowing that their top two guys are going to be a lot more aggressive,” Johnson said on what the Hawks can learn from the loss. “I think being able to identify that type of thing early on, I think that’ll help us not maintain those guys, but just have more awareness with that type of thing.”
