Jock Landale Questionable vs. Lakers After Missing 4 Straight Hawks Games

Jock Landale has missed four straight games with a left hip strain. The Atlanta Hawks list the center as questionable for Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers at State Farm Arena.

Keshon Gilbert, Mouhamed Gueye, Asa Newell, and Henri Veesaar are out. Tip-off is 7 p.m. ET.

The Hawks are 7-4 with four straight wins. The fourth came Saturday night, 124-121 over the Brooklyn Nets on the back end of a back-to-back. Brooklyn led by as many as 17 points. The Hawks outscored Brooklyn 36-26 in the fourth quarter.

In his first game since Oct. 31, Jalen Johnson scored 30 points on 11-of-17 shooting to go with 7 rebounds and 6 assists. Dyson Daniels had 9 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists, and 6 steals. Atlanta scored 70 points in the paint to Brooklyn’s 48.

Johnson logged 35:54 against Brooklyn, his first minutes since spraining the ankle.

“I feel good,” Johnson said. “I was ready to play so I’ll get treatment tomorrow and get ready for Monday.”

On Oct. 31 at Smoothie King Center, Landale got 1:22 of first-quarter playing time off the bench in what became a 121-99 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. He left with the hip strain and never came back in.

From there the backup center minutes belonged to Newell, and every one of his 13 points came after halftime.

Johnson did not play in the fourth quarter after spraining his left ankle in the same game, a night when the Hawks shot 8-of-46 from 3-point range.

“Hopefully both those guys are going to be okay and not be out for too long, we’ll know more about that tomorrow and beyond,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said.

Since then, Landale has sat out the Nov. 2 win at the Indiana Pacers, both games against the Washington Wizards, and Saturday’s game against Brooklyn. Onyeka Okongwu had 16 points, 5 assists, and 3 blocks against the Nets. Zuby Ejiofor added 7 points and 6 rebounds in 18:13.

The Nets finished with 53 rebounds to Atlanta’s 40, and Noah Clowney, Day’Ron Sharpe, and Danny Wolf grabbed 10 apiece.

Aaron Wiggins, who had 6 assists, sees the missing bigs as a chance to play more as a connector.

“I think just understanding as a team the ways that we can help each other,” Wiggins said. “When we’re missing, whether it’s Jalen Johnson in scoring and playmaking, whether it’s Jock [Landale], Asa [Newell], and [their] rebounding, just opportunities to kind of create as a connector on the team. Understanding individually how you can contribute, and then as a team, our strengths. I think we do a good job moving the ball, passing the ball, creating for each other, playing without the ball, and those things require more attention when you’re missing some of our bigs, and obviously rebounding as a team is bigger.”

“So I think guys understand that when we’re missing pieces like that, we have to fill in as a team, and it has to be as a collective,” Wiggins continued. “And guys have done a good job to this point, just kind of understanding.”

Landale re-signed with Atlanta in the offseason on a one-year, $14 million contract. The Hawks had acquired him from the Utah Jazz on Feb. 4, one day after the Memphis Grizzlies traded him to Utah in an eight-player deal.

In 68 games with Memphis and Atlanta last season, he averaged career highs of 10.6 points and 5.7 rebounds. With the Hawks alone, he averaged 9.1 points and 4.1 rebounds in 23 games.

A right high ankle sprain kept him out of Atlanta’s first-round series against the New York Knicks in April. New York won it in six games.

Newell hyperextended his left big toe in the first half of Wednesday’s 120-105 win in Washington and did not come back. The team plans to re-evaluate him in about two weeks.

Gilbert, who is on a two-way contract, went to the Emory Sports Medicine Complex on Thursday for a nonsurgical procedure on his left knee, and the Hawks expect to re-evaluate him in about six weeks.

Gueye has been out since a July 8 workout in which he fractured his left foot. He had surgery, and the timeline Atlanta gave over the summer called for a re-evaluation three to four months later.

Atlanta took Veesaar 52nd overall in June. He tore his right ACL during a Sept. 15 workout. Six days later, the Hawks said they expect him to sit out the season.

The Lakers carry an 8-2 record into Sunday’s game at the Detroit Pistons, which opens a four-game road trip that also stops in Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Phoenix.

Luka Dončić is out against the Pistons with low back tightness. Back tightness also kept him out Oct. 28, the second night of a back-to-back, when the Lakers beat the LA Clippers 103-87 without him.

Dončić has averaged a league-high 40.1 points in nine appearances. He is also averaging 7.8 rebounds and 7.7 assists. Friday night against the Portland Trail Blazers, he scored 53 in 38 minutes of a 124-118 win.

Walker Kessler is listed as available in Detroit while wearing a splint on his left finger.

Atlanta goes on the road after Monday, starting Friday against the Chicago Bulls at 8 p.m. ET before games in Milwaukee and Oklahoma City.