Griffin Wong breaks down his analysis, prediction, and pick for Jazz at Hawks on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the Utah Jazz made arguably the most stunning move of the 2025-26 NBA trade deadline, sending four players and three first-round picks to the Memphis Grizzlies for the services of former Defensive Player of the Year Jaren Jackson Jr. and fast-tracking their push towards contention after an extended rebuild.

At 7:30 p.m. ET tonight, the Jazz will play their second game since the trade when they travel to face the Atlanta Hawks.

Jackson, Jock Landale, John Konchar, and Vince Williams Jr. won’t yet be able to suit up as the trade goes through, and neither will Keyonte George, who’s out with an ankle sprain, so Utah will likely be extremely short-handed again. Atlanta could be as well after trading Kristaps Porziņġis for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield, though it could get Onyeka Okongwu (face) back.

The Hawks are 9.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook (-360 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 244.5. The Jazz are +285 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this inter-conference matchup and offer a prediction.

Utah Jazz at Atlanta Hawks preview, prediction

Utah won on Tuesday with just seven players, as second-year pro Isaiah Collier became the youngest player in NBA history to record a 20-assist game with a 17-point, 22-dime masterpiece. But that win came against an awful Indiana Pacers team sitting Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, Pascal Siakam, T.J. McConnell, and Aaron Nesmith, so it shouldn’t inspire a ton of confidence as to the Jazz’s chances of winning tonight. At least Jusuf Nurkić, who suited up for that game to meet the eight-player minimum but didn’t play, will actually take the court tonight, which should help that Utah lineup’s rebounding issues. Prior to that contest, the Jazz had lost 10 of their previous 11 games.

Atlanta is 6-6 since dealing Trae Young for C.J. McCollum and Corey Kispert, with McCollum averaging 18.7 points per game on 47-37-65 shooting splits across that span and Kispert averaging 9.9 points per game while shooting 34.5% from beyond the arc. The Hawks have also gotten one of their starters back, re-integrating 2024 first overall pick Zaccharie Risacher into the lineup after he missed more than three weeks with a bone bruise in his knee, but he hasn’t been much of a factor in the last two games, scoring just seven points in each one.

Jazz at Hawks pick, best bet

Atlanta hasn’t been very good on either side of the ball since making the trade, but perhaps surprisingly, the Hawks have been better on defense, ranking 23rd in offensive rating and 15th in defensive rating. But they’ve improved offensively since newly-minted All-Star Jalen Johnson broke out of his slump, averaging 25.6 points and 13.1 rebounds per game over his last seven games, scoring at least 120 points in five of the seven games in which he’s appeared. All in all, the Jazz have been slightly better on offense than Atlanta, but they’ve continued to be league’s worst defense — something Jackson will help with eventually.

So far, the trade has helped both the Hawks’ perimeter defense and their rim protection. McCollum and Kispert are mediocre at best on that side of the ball, but since they joined the team, Atlanta has allowed the 11th-most shot attempts in the restricted area, an improvement from the fifth-worst mark on a season-long basis. Plus, opponents have converted such shots at a rate 1.3 percentage points lower than their season average despite Okongwu missing each of the last three games with a serious facial injury. The Hawks have also gotten downhill at an above-average rate, which could be critical against a Utah defense that has done a great job at stopping opponents from getting to the rim but conceded top-two percentages from both the restricted area and the non-restricted paint.

Where the Jazz have the chance to make up some of the edge is on the glass: across that span, Atlanta has ranked third-to-last in rebounding percentage, and it has actually been worse on the boards with the six-foot-10 Okongwu manning the middle. That’s not to say that Utah has been good on the boards in that span — it ranks just 25th — but its rebounding percentage has been 6.0 percentage points higher with Nurkić in the middle and 5.1 percentage points higher with Markkanen on the court. But the Jazz’s entire edge in rebounding might evaporate in transition, given their pass-heavy scheme and Atlanta’s swarming defense. Utah has done a terrible job getting back after turnovers, and the Hawks force plenty of those.

Atlanta’s trades of Vít Krejči and Luke Kennard could end up making a difference. The Jazz have given up the league’s most wide-open threes this season, and while the Hawks have been good at both generating such looks and knocking them down, Kennard and Krejči have both made more than half of their uncontested threes, though on low volume in Krejči’s case. Meanwhile, since the deal, Atlanta has been slightly better than league-average at preventing wide-open triples, and while Utah will be missing its best shooter, George, its three next-most accurate players — Markkanen, Svi Mykhailiuk, and, likely, Kevin Love — will all be available. The Hawks probably still have a slight advantage in the shooting department, but the Jazz’s shooting ability goes far beyond just George.

Atlanta’s perimeter defense and fast-moving style should be enough to slow down a Utah team that thrives through its jump-shooting and won’t have one of its primary offensive creators, but the Hawks still need rebounding with Porziņġis off the roster, and the Jazz have size. Utah will lose because of its rim protection, but its penchant for giving up wide-open threes should be mitigated enough tonight that it can cover the spread.

Best bet: Utah Jazz +9.5 (-112)