**What:** Charlotte Hornets (24-28) (13-15 away) at Atlanta Hawks (26-27) (10-14 home)
**When:** 7:30pm Eastern
**Where:** State Farm Arena; Atlanta, GA
**How to watch:** FanDuel Sports Network, NBA League Pass
**Outfitting:** Hornets–Icon (teal), Hawks–City (black)
**Game Lines:** Hornets -2.5, Hornets money line -135, O/U 230.5
**Injuries:**
Hornets: Tidjane Salaun-questionable (illness), Coby White-out (calf), Malaki Branham-out (not with team)
Hawks: Onyeka Okongwu-questionable (dental fracture), Buddy Hield-questionable (trade pending), Gabe Vincent-questionable (trade pending), Jonathan Kuminga-out (knee and trade pending)
The Hornets continue their ascent up the standings. They’ve tied the Bulls on record and currently sit in the 10th spot thanks to tiebreakers. Up next in the standings and on the schedule are the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks are currently the nine seed in the Eastern Conference and a game and a half up on the Hornets. That means a win by the Hornets tonight will have them just a half game back with another game against the Hawks coming next week.
Atlanta has had a weird season. For one, long time centerpiece Trae Young is gone. He’s been replaced by Jalen Johnson. On top of that, the way they’ve reached their slightly below .500 record is very odd. Both wins and losses come in spurts. All of their wins and losses have come in streaks of at least two since mid-December. And even prior to that, alternating wins and losses were hard to find. It’s a team that seems to get really hot or really cold.
Right now is one of their flows. They’ve won their last two games. The most recent of those was a two point win at home over the Jazz on Thursday. They were led by Jock Landale, who found out he was getting traded to Atlanta on Wednesday night, so [he drove from Memphis to Atlanta](https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jock-landale-drove-memphis-atlanta-074150961.html) to play the next night. He went on to play by far the best game of his career, scoring 26 points and tallying 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 4 blocks.
Along with newfound superstar Landale, the Hawks are headed by Jalen Johnson. He leads the Hawks in points, rebounds, and assists. We saw how difficult he can be in the last meeting when he scored 43 points and nearly had a triple double. He’s difficult to keep away from the basket, but the Hornets have been much better against that type of player lately. Nickeil Alexander-Walker is much more perimeter oriented, but he’s a menace in his own right. Dyson Daniels and Zaccharie Risacher provide some defense, while the newly acquired CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert add some firepower off the bench.
The Hornets come into this game playing much better defense than they were the last time they faced this Hawks team. Hopefully that means Jalen Johnson finds it a little tougher to score, though he does play a similar style to Cooper Flagg, who dropped 49 on the Hornets not that long ago. I’d like to see the offense look a little more fluid than it has in recent games. The Hawks aren’t particularly good defensively, so there’s a good chance for the Hornets to find their groove there.
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