The Hawks Keep on Rolling

Things just keep on getting better for the Atlanta Hawks in the 2026 preseason. They played the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight for their second-to-last preseason contest, and they came away with their third consecutive victory. Welcome back to Hawks Digest. My name is Michael Kabrinski, and as we dive into today's video, we're going to be recapping the Hawks' 113-110 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight. And this game, this was one of those preseason games that you kind of see every season where both teams rested pretty much almost all of their starters. The Oklahoma City Thunder, they announced hours and hours before the game that their stars, their main rotation guys, all of their main rotation guys. You're talking SGA, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams, Alex Caruso, Jared McCain, Isaiah Hartenstein, AJ Mitchell, all of their main rotation guys, they were out tonight. And so it was just the rookies, two-way guys, and guys on the exhibit 10-day deals that played for the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight. And for the Hawks, they rested most of their starters and main rotation guys as well. You had Dyson Daniels sitting, CJ McCollum, Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okonwu, Aaron Wiggins. All of those guys were sitting. So the starting lineups tonight definitely looked a bit different. But I think there's still a lot of good things to take away from the games tonight, particularly from the young players. It was fun to see Kingston Flemings and Zuby Ejiofor go head-to-head against Adai Mara, who obviously there were a lot of Hawks fans who wanted Adai Mara in this draft. So, well, we got to see all three of those guys in this game today, and we're going to talk about all of that action as this video unfolds. But before we get into talking about tonight's game, I got to tell you about today's video sponsor, and that's going to be our guys over at Kalshi. 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That is a heck of a defensive performance right there. And 0 turnovers to those 5 assists as well. So a really, really solid performance from Jock Landale tonight in this game. And in the first quarter, he was matched up against Adai Mara. And spoiler alert, we'll get into Mara a bit later in today's video but Mara had a heck of a game but in the first quarter Landale was honestly torching Adai Mara he even postered him in the first quarter on a ridiculous dunk on the baseline and it was really RJ Dennis and Jock Landale it was Jock Landale and Nikhil Alexander-Walker in the pick and roll they were forcing Mara to move his feet on the perimeter and then recover to try to um deny landale's roll to the rim and simply mara just didn't have the foot speed to do that the hawks exposed his lack of uh his lack of um lateral quickness there on defense so you had Jock Landale really taking advantage of all of those uh all those passes and credit to Nikhil Alexander-Walker Kingston Fleming's RJ Dennis the guards that played for the Hawks tonight definitely were able to find their big men rolling to the rim so Landale was a huge beneficiary of that and I thought he had had a rough preseason so far but tonight even though it was against a rookie and a lesser Oklahoma City Thunder rotation it was definitely a bounce back in the right direction for Landale who in the preseason I thought especially defensively he has struggled a bit but I want to go to our next great performer for the Hawks tonight and that's going to be none other than Zuby Ejiofor and without uh without Onyeka Kangu as you might expect he got all of the backup center minutes behind Landale tonight and Zuby Ejiofor in 23 minutes 15 points five of nine from the field one of two from deep four four from the line nine rebounds three assists one block now I thought Zuby Ejiofor offensively when when he caught the ball because he did have he did have some ball security issues he brought the ball down a lot when he got into the paint. So that caused those three turnovers there. And also on a couple of these passes that he received inside, just kind of fumbled them a bit. So catching those passes, knowing his guards, knowing where he wants the ball is going to be something that they're going to need to develop in practice. But overall, Zuby Ejiofor in this game, I thought he played pretty well. And if we go back a couple months ago, remember in the summer league when Zuby Ejiofor had a 19 point 15 rebound double-double against Adama Mara, and he really put himself on the map with that performance. Well, I think we saw some shades of that performance tonight as well. And I think Zuby really was able to outrun Mara on the fast break. There were times when he had positioning against Oklahoma City that, even though he is shorter in terms of his height, his strength, the way he plays with physicality, definitely, definitely is to his advantage. now one thing that Zuby Ejiofor definitely does need to clean up for his rookie season though is the fouling he picked up another three fouls tonight and in 23 minutes that's not a big deal but overall in the course of this preseason we've seen some fouls where Zuby Ejiofor is over aggressive on defense where he doesn't need to be he committed a reaching foul tonight that kind of seemed unnecessarily early in the game so being disciplined defensively is something that I think we're going to see Zuby Ejiofor have to try to work on throughout his rookie campaign but nonetheless when Zuby did get the ball and secure it cleanly I thought he played pretty well especially offensively in this game for sure and then next we'll go to a fellow rookie of Zuby Ejiofor and go to Kingston Flemings and for Kingston in tonight's game he finished with He's obviously a starter in this one because of all the guys resting. He was in 28 minutes, 3 of 11 from the field, 1 of 2 from the free throw line, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal, and 7 points. Now, this was definitely not as good of a game for Kingston Flemings as we've seen so far in the Summer League. Now, you do, for Kingston, you do love to see the 7 assists to 0 turnovers. And that is something he comes into the NBA with, right? we've talked about on this channel a lot about how he just comes in as a 19 year old with playmaking with decision making that really is beyond his years and we saw that tonight especially in the pick and roll but in terms of finishing around the basket tonight uh definitely uh Adama Mara bothered him a couple shots there were a couple times where it seemed like he had a nice move to get to the basket but he didn't quite finish he didn't put the right angle uh right spin on the ball off the glass so um i i that that finishing is still going to need to improve for Kingston Fleming as he moves on in his career but i think kind of the biggest the biggest takeaway i got from Kingston Fleming in this game in terms of a negative standpoint would be the fact that look Fleming we knew that there was a question of three-point volume coming into coming into his game from Houston and in this game i felt like he passed up at least three or four three-pointers where either the defense left him open they went under a screen or he had that bit of space that Quinn Snyder encourages his players to shoot from and he passed it up I remember one play where he was open at the top of the key for a three he decides to pass it up swings the ball to the left wing to Ray J Dennis and Ray J Dennis ends up traveling so it's a turnover without even a shot attempted on that possession for the Hawks and that those are the type of things that Corey Kispert was talking about at media day too when I asked him you know how does Kingston Fleming three point volume affect this offense Corey Kispert said Kingston needs to take those shots and tonight I think you saw a little bit of the negative effects that can happen when you don't take what the defense give you it gives you in Kingston Fleming's case right here so hopefully hopefully a bounce back performance in terms of scoring for Kingston but the playmaking the playmaking and defense I don't think that has gone away throughout this preseason so that is something that that's good so even though even though he might have had a rough uh rough scoring game he's still impacting the game in other areas for sure now the next guy i want to go to is none other than the hawk the hawks lonesome starter that is going to be in the starting lineup day one of this season and that's going to be Nickeil Alexander-Walker in 25 minutes 16 points 4 of 10 from the field 4 of 7 from deep perfect 4 4 from the line 6 rebounds 5 assists uh one steal look Nickeil we we talked about uh throughout the past year so when he really ever since Nickeil Alexander-Walker has been in Atlanta uniform that his passing has not been his strong suit but you could tell tonight that he was whenever he drove to the rim he was trying to find his teammates trying to dish out some assists especially down low and yes he did commit three turnovers a couple of those passes went awry but I he told he told us that media day that he really tried to improve he tried to get stronger and improve his playmaking skills this summer and I think we saw some of that in this game as far as the passing goes so hopefully that's something that carries over to the regular season and for Nickeil look this this game seems like more of a tune-up game for him and for and I think for Nikhil maybe he wanted to play just to get chemistry with those younger guys to see how just just developing that uh that all just gelling on the court with the younger guys and I think for Nickeil that that's only going to bode well for the team in the regular season but I thought Nickeil overall today was pretty solid defensively he was there the shooting it was there and the and the passing I think I wonder if we can get Nickeil Alexander Walker's assist to turnover ratio a little bit better because if so you saw some passes that he made today that he might not have made last season so that's definitely definitely a good step in the right direction for the regular season now I did say at the beginning of this video that we were going to talk about Adai Mara eventually and that time has come we highlighted all the Hawks performances but I do want to get to what Adai Mara did in this game so the Oklahoma City Thunder big man in this game I talked about the first quarter where Jock Landale was really bullying Adama Mara in the pick and roll he had a couple posters on him he made a three like Adama Mara really looked slow and couldn't really keep up with the Hawks' offense. But after that first quarter, Mara turned it around, and he really turned in a really good performance overall in this game. In 33 minutes, 17 points, 4 of 9 from the field, 9 of 12 from the free-throw line, so we definitely put the Hawks in foul trouble. Jock Landell had five fouls, but pretty much three quarters of the way through the third quarter, which contributed to some of that foul trouble there for the Hawks. but Adama Mara continuing his stat line 10 rebounds six assists four blocks now he did have five turnovers with those six assists so there is that and that there is that as well but the four blocks all of those came in the first half and that doesn't count the shots that he deterred at the rim so I thought Adama Mara after a terrible first quarter actually looked really good in this game he threw a couple passes to his teammates that you don't see a lot of centers do and just his size that is pure size at seven foot three the Hawks definitely had trouble with him after that first quarter so credit to Mara credit to OKC they have a great coach over there on Mark Daigneault they definitely made an adjustment put Mara in better positions to succeed throughout the rest of the game after that first quarter but ultimately it didn't give them the win which you know bodes well for the Hawks and when it comes down to it this game was really close but Kobe Johnson Kobe Johnson had a really good fourth quarter as well as Ray J Dennis I do want to highlight those two guys right here in the box score because they they their performances will go under the radar but Kobe Johnson in 10 minutes all of these minutes came in the fourth quarter by the way 10 points perfect 4-4 from the field three rebounds two steals excellent excellent performance from Kobe Johnson and then Ray J Dennis in 24 minutes 13 points 6 of 11 from the field one of five from deep four rebounds seven assists also had those three steals there and Ray J hit a clutch three in the closing seconds about 28 seconds left in this game to put the Hawks up three coming down so the Oklahoma City Thunder are very much in this game after that three but Ray J actually steals the ball passes to Kobe Johnson for a dunk and that seals this win for Atlanta so So, Ray J. Dennis and Kobe Johnson definitely getting great experience there closing games at the NBA level. And it is preseason, but still, great experience for those guys. And the Hawks come away with their third straight preseason win. Now, Atlanta does have one more preseason game left against the Dallas Mavericks on the road on Friday. And after that, next Wednesday, almost a week, a week and two days from now, the hawks open the season on the road against the Orlando Magic for the 2024-25 campaign so we're getting close guys we're getting close to that opening up um so getting really excited really excited for this season but with that we're going to close out today's video definitely let me know in the comments below what did you guys think of the hawks performance tonight what players stood out to you what did you like to see what would you like to improve before the start of the regular season but yeah we were going ahead and ending it right here don't forget to like comment and subscribe on the way out we appreciate all the support you guys have been showing the channel it's been huge right now and with that we will see you in the next one peace