Down six with the ball and a chance to make it a one-possession game, Jalen Johnson drove into traffic and got blocked. Miami turned it into a transition bucket, the lead went back to eight, and the Hawks never seriously threatened again. That happened with a little over three minutes left in a game Atlanta eventually lost 129-117.
Atlanta is now on a three-game losing streak after opening the season 2-0. Miami, which had dropped its first four games, got its breakthrough win at the Hawks' expense. Jalen Johnson was supposed to prevent that from happening, and he didn't.
Jalen Johnson entered the night averaging a stat line that made him a nightly triple-double threat and coming off a 21-point, nine-rebound, four-assist game against Houston two days earlier. Against Miami he finished with 12 points on 4-for-12 shooting. Nickeil Alexander-Walker and rookie Kingston Flemings, playing in roughly his fifth career NBA game, each outscored him by double digits. Bam Adebayo, working the other end for Miami, doubled him up in points on more efficient shooting. A player with an All-Star berth and an All-NBA nod from a year ago doesn't get to have a night like that and call it a blip, not when the ball was in his hands with the game still very much alive.
Rating
RatingFour games in, shooting slumps happen, and nobody's jump shot or decision-making is fully locked in by late October. A cold shooting night is explainable. Driving into a shot-blocker instead of drawing a foul or finding an open shooter, with the season on the line, is a decision. With a chance to turn a six-point deficit into a one-possession game, Johnson took the path of least resistance and paid for it immediately.
Atlanta's roster is part of the problem too. A team that leans on undersized lineups is going to get exposed by a bigger, more physical opponent in these moments, and Miami's front line made Atlanta pay for it repeatedly down the stretch. Quin Snyder said days earlier, after a similar fourth-quarter fade against Houston, that his team is competitive when it plays with movement and ball pressure and "just not as good a team" when it doesn't. He was talking about a different night, but the same pattern showed up again here. A coach who keeps naming the problem out loud without fixing it owns part of this too.
RTGNone of that gets Johnson off the hook. He's the best player on this roster, the one built and paid to be the difference in these moments, and he was the softest presence on the floor when the game was still winnable. Atlanta has a rookie in his first week in the league who looked hungrier for a big shot than the guy carrying the franchise's hopes. The question is whether Jalen Johnson actually wants to be the guy. Wednesday night, he answered it the wrong way.
