Johnson Returns in Style: 30 Points as Hawks Rally Past Nets 124-121 for Fourth Straight Win

Three games on the sideline is a long time to watch your team win without you. Jalen Johnson did not waste any of his first night back.

The Atlanta forward returned from a sprained left ankle on Saturday night and played like he had never left, scoring 30 points on 11-of-17 shooting as the Hawks came from behind to beat the Brooklyn Nets 124-121 at State Farm Arena. It was Atlanta's fourth straight win, and for long stretches of the evening it looked like the one that might get away.

Brooklyn came out swinging. The Nets put 37 points on the board in the first quarter and led by 10 when it ended, with Michael Porter Jr. already finding his rhythm on the way to a 25-point, nine-rebound night. The Hawks looked a step slow, the way teams sometimes do the night after an emotional win, and the crowd at State Farm Arena had gone quiet.

Johnson changed the temperature. He scored inside, he got to the free-throw line eight times and made all but two, and he kept finding teammates when Brooklyn loaded up on him, finishing with six assists to go with seven rebounds. He missed all five of his three-point attempts, which only made the rest of his line more impressive: this was a night built on drives, cuts and second efforts rather than jump shots.

Atlanta steadied itself with a 39-point second quarter and never really let the game get away from it again. Nickeil Alexander-Walker, two nights removed from a 28-point night against Washington, added 20 more, and Aaron Wiggins matched him with 20 of his own off a bench that keeps giving the Hawks real production. The lead changed hands through the middle quarters, but the fourth belonged to Atlanta, which outscored Brooklyn 36-26 down the stretch and led by seven with nine seconds left before the Nets trimmed the final margin.

There is a pattern forming here that the rest of the East should probably notice. The Hawks swept a home-and-home with Washington on Friday, spoiling Trae Young's first game back in Atlanta as a visitor, and now they have beaten Brooklyn without ever quite playing their best basketball for a full 48 minutes. At 7-4 they are winning the games they are supposed to win and a few they are not, and they are doing it with depth: three different players have led them in scoring across this four-game run.

Brooklyn, meanwhile, drops to 2-7, and the frustration is starting to show in the numbers. The Nets led this one for long stretches and still lost, which is becoming a theme. Porter was excellent, but nobody else in a Brooklyn jersey reached 20, and when the Hawks tightened up defensively in the fourth the Nets had no second answer.

Johnson's ankle will be watched closely in the days ahead — three missed games is not nothing, and the Hawks have no reason to rush him — but on the evidence of Saturday night, the layoff did him no harm at all. He played nearly 36 minutes, attacked the rim all night, and looked every bit the player Atlanta has been building around. If he stays healthy, the Hawks' ceiling keeps rising.