Jalen Johnson had 21 points, nine rebounds and nine assists to help lead the Atlanta Hawks to their eighth straight victory, 108-97 over the visiting Brooklyn Nets on Thursday.
Zaccharie Risacher added 19 points and nine rebounds off the bench for Atlanta, which notched the franchise’s longest win streak since an eight-game stretch in March 2021. Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 18 points, C.J. McCollum totaled 14 and Onyeka Okongwu finished with 13 for the Hawks, who briefly trailed in the fourth quarter.
Josh Minott’s 24 points off the bench led Brooklyn, followed by Drake Powell’s 11. Ben Saraf and Noah Clowney chipped in 10 apiece for the Nets, who dropped their 12th game in 14 tries.
Brooklyn cut its seven-point deficit to one on Clowney’s 3-pointer with 8:27 remaining in the third, forcing an Atlanta timeout. After the Hawks extended their lead to 10, Minott’s third triple knotted the score at 74 with 3:37 left in the quarter.
Tyson Etienne beat the third-quarter buzzer with a trey, slicing the visitors’ deficit to 82-79 entering the final quarter.
Just over a minute into the fourth, Brooklyn took its first lead since the opening minutes as Saraf’s turnaround hook put the Nets ahead 83-82. Atlanta answered with a 10-0 run — including six points from McCollum — to grab a nine-point edge with 8:35 left.
E.J. Liddell’s layup pulled the Nets within five, but Johnson scored nine of Atlanta’s 11-0 spurt to build a 106-91 advantage at the 2:08 mark. Risacher’s putback layup with less than a minute left sealed the victory.
Atlanta built a 17-7 lead as 3-pointers by Gabe Vincent and Risacher stamped an 11-0 run. After trailing by nine after the opening quarter, the Nets closed the gap to three on Nicolas Claxton’s floater with nine minutes left in the first half.
The Hawks then opened the lead back up to 12 on Risacher’s putback layup and Vincent’s pullup triple. After Alexander-Walker’s 3-pointer gave Atlanta a 57-47 lead, Minott’s buzzer-beating trey trimmed Brooklyn’s halftime deficit to seven. Risacher’s 16 first-half points led all scorers, while Minott scored 10 for the Nets.
