ATLANTA (AP) — After a season of jarring change and inconsistent play, the Atlanta Hawks appear to be coming together at just the right time.
The Hawks won their seventh straight game — the team's longest streak since the 2021-22 season and best active run in the NBA — by holding off the woeful Dallas Mavericks 124-112 on Tuesday night.
It wasn't pretty, but was just the kind of effort the Hawks needed as they try to escape a fifth straight trip to the play-in
tournament.
“We're becoming more mature,” said Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who scored 29 points against the Mavericks. “The way we've won some of these games in this stretch have been really good, because we're proving that we can respond in the middle, like that adjustment period that needs to be made. We're handling runs better. Our unity is more cohesive as a group, and it shows.”
Cohesive would not be a word to describe this season. The Hawks came in with high hopes, but injuries and illnesses deprived them of key players Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis for long stretches. Atlanta struggled at home and tumbled under .500 with a seven-game skid in December.
Both Young and Porzingis have since been traded away, signaling yet another new era for a franchise that has largely been a remote outpost on the NBA landscape.
Atlanta is now led by Jalen Johnson, who made his first All-Star Game appearance this season, joined by Alexander-Walker and Dyson Daniels.
All three came up big in the latest victory, in which the Hawks struggled to put away a Dallas team in full tanking mode with 18 losses in its last 20 games.
But, after the Mavericks tied the game at 97 with just over nine minutes remaining, the Hawks took control. Alexander-Walker hit back-to-back 3-pointers that essentially sealed the victory. Johnson had 27 points and eight assists. Daniels contributed 14 points and 10 assists while stifling Dallas rookie star Cooper Flagg.
“We found a way to get stops, found a way to band together,” Alexander-Walker said.
Alexander-Walker has blossomed in his first season with the Hawks after spending much of his career in a backup role.
He credited his teammates for giving “me that confidence to just continue to shoot, continue to play the game, make the reads. Their reactions to whether or not that was a great (read) or not have been a relief to me. To just be able to play and not look over my shoulder, I just feel free."
Already recognized for his defensive prowess, Daniels has assumed many of the playmaking duties once held by Young, recording 50 assists with just four turnovers in the last seven games.
“Dyson has been huge for us, not just during this winning streak but over the whole year,” Johnson said. “Dyson brings pretty much every aspect to the game. He's somebody who's always willing to get better, always willing to learn.”
Before the Hawks get too carried away, it's worth noting that only one victory in their current streak has come against an opponent with a winning record.
Johnson recognizes that this team is still a work in progress. The Hawks are only ninth in the East and remained 2 1/2 games behind sixth-place Miami for the final guaranteed playoff spot.
“We're not focused on the winning streak. That's not the end goal,” Johnson said. “The end goal is to make a playoff push.”
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