3 Takeaways From Hawks’ 120-105 Win Over Wizards

The Atlanta Hawks won for the third time in four games Wednesday night, beating the Washington Wizards 120-105 in the first of two meetings this week. They did it without All-Star forward Jalen Johnson for a second consecutive game.

Kingston Flemings made his first career start, with CJ McCollum moving to the bench.

Atlanta out-rebounded Washington 57-41. Nineteen of those boards came on the offensive end, and the Hawks turned them into 17 second-chance points. The Wizards had 12.

Onyeka Okongwu grabbed 16 rebounds, 13 of them defensive, and added 14 points and 4 assists. Dyson Daniels also had 16, seven of them offensive, to go with 8 points and 8 assists in 34 minutes.

Asa Newell chipped in 3 rebounds and 3 assists off the bench. Anthony Davis had 10 rebounds for Washington.

Hawks coach Quin Snyder said getting that many rebounds takes work.

“[Daniels] finds so many ways to impact the game,” Snyder said. “And we’ve seen that with his defense. We’ve seen it with rebounding tonight. I thought the boards were something that was crucial for our team. And to get that [many], you got to work hard. And I think that’s kind of the thin red line that runs through everything with that is competitiveness.”

Johnson has been out since spraining his left ankle in the Oct. 31 loss at New Orleans.

Washington had beaten Charlotte 95-79 and Orlando 103-94 in its previous two games. Wizards coach Brian Keefe said the Wizards had been the league’s best defensive rebounding team over that stretch, and the Hawks still grabbed 19 offensive boards.

“I think we had made a good adjustment,” Keefe said. “In the last two games, if you’ve watched us, we were [the] number one defensive rebounding team the last two games. Give them credit. This is kind of one of the things that they do. We’ll take a look at the film and we’ll get better tomorrow.”

Trae Young, who had 2 rebounds against his former team, said long rebounds off Atlanta’s 3-point attempts are on the guards.

“I got to, obviously,” Young said. “There’s times that I need to get down there and get boards and help my, I need to help my bigs rebound every time. Especially when teams like we play tonight, they shoot a lot of threes. And when you shoot threes, they’re long rebounds. And a lot of those threes they shot tonight were long. They were tip outs to them back again.”

“So a lot of that is on the guards because the bigs are usually around the rim,” Young continued. “So that’s where I can get those rebounds and help our team that way, but we got a lot more to focus on than just rebounding from tonight and we’ll be ready for Friday.”

Atlanta made 19 of its 49 tries from deep. Washington went 6-of-26.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker took 14 of them and made six on his way to 26 points. On Monday at Indiana, he matched his career high with nine, and the Hawks made 23 as a team.

That came two days after a 121-99 loss in New Orleans in which they shot 8-of-46 from 3-point range.

Aaron Wiggins went 3-of-7, Okongwu 2-of-5, McCollum 2-of-7, and Luguentz Dort 2-of-6. Zuby Ejiofor hit one of his two attempts.

Flemings wants to affect the game any time he is on the floor. He made both of his 3-pointers and finished with 14 points.

“Just good shooting, really,” Flemings said. “We’re getting good shots. We’re getting good shots. When we get downhill, we got a lot of great shooting from the team. So, that’s my job when I get in the game, and we got good shooting tonight.”

Washington took 23 fewer 3s than Atlanta. Keefe said the Wizards are built to play in the paint, and they outscored the Hawks 62-50 there.

“I think our team is built to be playing the paint and play to our strength,” Keefe explained. “Score [at] the rim, free throw attempts. I want us taking efficient shots. I think we took efficient shots tonight. We didn’t make some of them, but everybody’s got a different formula. We’re figuring out what works best for us.”

“And we think attacking the rim, getting to the rim, getting to the free throw line, establishing ourselves early,” Keefe continued. “And I know that we’re going to open up the court with our shooting. That’s going to come.”

McCollum and Wiggins scored 15 points apiece. Ejiofor added 11 on 4-of-6 shooting, Corey Kispert scored 9, and Newell had 2.

McCollum was in the second unit because Flemings took his starting job. He shot 5-of-14 and added 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals. At Indiana on Monday, with Flemings serving a one-game suspension, McCollum handed out 12 assists.

Kispert did not check in until 4:43 remained in the third quarter. Trae Young’s step-back 3 cut Atlanta’s lead to 83-79 at the 2:55 mark, and 35 seconds later Kispert answered with a four-point play.

Ejiofor scored twice in transition during a 13-0 second-quarter run that put the Hawks up 16.

Washington’s bench managed 16 points. Its starters accounted for the other 89, led by Davis with 26 and Kyshawn George with 25.

Washington’s reserves went 7-of-25 from the field. Eight games in, Keefe is still sorting out which groups work.

“It’s early in the season,” Keefe said. “We’re playing with different combinations, different groups. I’ve got great faith in our guys. We’ve got a lot of guys who have contributed to a lot of our wins this year. We’ve had a lot of different contributions and different [lineups] and different combinations. The guys have stepped up. So it’s still early in the season. We’re still figuring out what lineups work, but I got great confidence in those guys.”

The Hawks and Wizards meet again Friday at 7 p.m. ET in Atlanta.