Photo: Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0I'm 91% sure the Hawks don't need Jalen Johnson to make the playoffs.
They beat the Grizzlies 146-107. Without their All-Star. Eight players in double figures. Twenty-five threes. The building was still buzzing at garbage time because garbage time started in the second quarter.
I wrote three days ago that the schedule-strength argument was lazy. Now here's the depth argument: Nickeil Alexander-Walker dropped 26 on 8-of-11 shooting. This man averaged 11 points a year ago. Onyeka Okongwu had 16. Kuminga had 16. McCollum had 15 and 9 assists. Landale, Kispert, Risacher — all hit 11.
That's not a team surviving without its star. That's a team discovering it has seven of them.
Yes, Memphis has lost 11 of their last 12. I don't care. The Hawks scored 146 points. You don't accidentally score 146 points. That number requires execution, rhythm, and the kind of ball movement that makes defensive game plans irrelevant.
Thirteen wins in the last 14 games. Forty and 32. Sixth in the East.
Simone wrote about what this means for the city. I'll tell you what it means for the standings: trouble for everyone seeded above them.
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