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

On Tuesday night, Trae Young made his return to Atlanta for the first time since the January 8 trade that sent him from the Hawks to the Washington Wizards. He sat on the Wizards’ bench and grew emotional during the team’s tribute video.

He’ll presumably be in attendance again tonight when the teams rematch tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET at State Farm Arena, though he will again be unavailable to play as he continues to ramp up after knee and quad strains that he suffered with Atlanta early in the season.

In addition to Young, several key Wizards remain sidelined, with Anthony Davis (hand) and D’Angelo Russell (not with team) not ready to make their debuts and Kyshawn George (knee), Alex Sarr (hamstring), and Cam Whitmore (deep vein thrombosis) remaining out. The Hawks have a long injury list too: Nickeil Alexander-Walker (foot), Jalen Johnson (hip), and Zaccharie Risacher (hip) are all questionable.

Atlanta is an 11.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-575 on the Moneyline), with the point total set to 236.5. Washington is +425 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this divisional matchup and offer a prediction.

Washington Wizards at Atlanta Hawks preview, prediction

Given all of their injuries, the fact that the Wizards are a solid 6-7 in the last 13 games is rather commendable, though Washington’s braintrust would likely rather lose and keep the top-eight protected pick that it owes the New York Knicks. The remainder of the season will be about development for the Wizards’ young players. Sarr’s and George’s positions in the future are safe, but Bub Carrington — who’s shot just 37.5% from the field over the last 13 games — Will Riley, and two-way guard Alondes Williams have something to prove. Riley had 18 points on Tuesday and Williams 25 points and 10 rebounds last Friday.

The Hawks are in a more stable position, with their starting five of the future mostly locked in and Jalen Johnson looking like an All-NBA candidate, but they’ll have a big decision to make in October on the fourth-year option of 2024 first overall pick Risacher, whom they recently benched. Atlanta has a bevy of shooting-limited wings, especially after adding Jonathan Kuminga, and figuring out how to distribute minutes between CJ McCollum — who, at 34, isn’t a part of the team’s future core — the 23-year-old Kuminga, and the 20-year-old Risacher will be a critical question for the rest of the season.

Wizards at Hawks pick, best bet

Unlike his old team, the Golden State Warriors, the Hawks weren’t necessarily a team in need of Kuminga’s size and athleticism, as Johnson, Risacher, and Alexander-Walker provide plenty of that. But Kuminga excelled in his debut, recording 27 points and seven rebounds in just 24 minutes, and he should play a major role tonight, especially if Johnson ends up sitting. Kuminga doesn’t have the playmaking ability of Johnson, who ranks second in the league in triple-doubles, but he can approximate his scoring punch and utilize his athleticism on the boards. In theory, Kuminga accentuates an already much-improved team: the version of the starting lineup featuring McCollum has a net rating 24.3 points per 100 possessions better than the version featuring Risacher in roughly one-third of the minutes.

Both teams have been pretty gettable in the paint, though for different reasons. Atlanta has done a bad job stopping opponents from getting to the rack, conceding the fourth-most restricted area attempts, while Washington has given up the ninth-highest percentage in the restricted area and will be without one of the league’s better rim protectors in Sarr. Both teams’ personnel issues won’t help: the Hawks could be without Johnson and Alexander-Walker, who rank first and third on the team in restricted-area attempts, while Sarr leads the Wizards in both attempts and accuracy.

Neither of these teams can rebound very well, as Washington ranks dead last in rebounding percentage and Atlanta fourth-to-last, and it could be worse in that department without Johnson, who ranks eighth league-wide in rebounds per game. Where Atlanta could pull away is via its transition play: the Wizards have been one of the league’s most turnover-prone teams, even amid their relative hot streak, and the Hawks rank in the league’s top eight in steals and deflections per game, as well as in points off of turnovers, though they’ve slipped slightly in steals since McCollum made his team debut on January 11.

Across the last 20 games, Atlanta and Washington have produced wide-open threes at similar rates, but the Wizards have hit them at the league’s lowest clip, which indicates both bad luck and inferior raw shooting ability. The Hawks have a slight advantage defensively: across that same stretch, Washington has allowed 1.3 more wide-open threes per game and contested fewer, and McCollum alone means Atlanta is poised to take advantage. The Wizards have also regressed somewhat during their comparative hot streak, allowing the fourth-most in the league across that span.

Ultimately, this game depends on whether or not Johnson plays, as his penetration ability could be a challenge for Washington’s mediocre rim protectors and he could help battle on the glass with his length. But the Hawks are flawed enough that they could easily fail to cover the spread, and the ever-inconsistent Kuminga is not a guarantee to drop 27 points again. The fact that Washington has won as of late despite getting reasonably unlucky offensively suggests that it could do 10 points better than it did on Tuesday, when it had an anomalously awful offensive rebounding performance.

Best bet: Washington Wizards +11.5 (-110)