Atlanta Hawks, Twitter
Last night marked the beginning of Hawks basketball for the 2021-2022 season, as the NBA’s Summer League kicked off for the Hawks with a matchup against the Boston Celtics.
The Celtics won an 85-83 nail biter, as neither team could pull away from the entire game. Of course, the real reason for these Summer League games is to see how the young guys can do on NBA minutes against NBA competition, and boy did Jalen Johnson come to prove himself tonight. Jalen put up JC type stats, dropping 20 points and ten rebounds on a ridiculous 66.7% from the field. He also had one three-pointer and two assists.
Johnson seemed to pick up right where he left off in college and he even managed to pull off an incredible chase-down block on Boston’s Carsen Edwards, as well as a steal in the third, which lead to a nice transition bucket. While Johnson did stuff the stat sheet, it did come with its flaws. He picked up five turnovers, as expected of a rookie entering a new offensive system in a much faster league. Overall, Jalen had a terrific game in his debut and will hopefully build on that throughout the summer.
Sharife Cooper also had himself quite a night, showing off his passing prowess by leading the team with six assists. He continually beat his defender off the dribble, eerily resembling Trae Young in this year’s playoffs, scoring 11 points in the process. Again though, Cooper struggled to keep the ball under control. He finished the game with six turnovers to pair with those six assists. Cooper will also need to work on his defense, allowing Celtic’s Guard Payton Pritchard to drop 23 points. Outside of our draftees, Max Heidegger put up a smooth 12 points and three assists off the bench. The Israeli guard averaged 18.2 points and two assists per game in Israeli’s Premier League and will be someone to watch out for as Summer League continues. Outside of the turnovers and some lackluster shooting, the young Hawks looked all as advertised in their Summer League debuts.
