{"id":614476,"date":"2026-02-20T21:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614476\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:38:18","slug":"jalen-johnson-sends-urgent-second-half-message-to-atlanta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/614476\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Johnson sends urgent second half message to Atlanta"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second half of the season is upon us, and the Atlanta Hawks started it on a good note<\/a> with a 117-107 win against the Philadelphia 76ers. From now to the end of the season, every game will become more important for the Hawks as they try to climb the Eastern Conference standings.<\/p>\n

Currently the ninth seed, the Hawks have a chance to gain some ground when looking at the teams above them, but they could also fall in a matter of no time, with the Charlotte Hornets behind them.<\/p>\n

After their win against the 76ers, Johnson shared what the Hawks will need to do<\/a> to continue to climb the standings as the season continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we continue to play all 48 minutes, we\u2019ll put ourselves in the position to win every night. I know the guys in that locker room, the coaching staff and everybody, we believe in one another,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo if we continue to believe in one another, I think we\u2019ll make a good push.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks apparently had a team meeting the night before the game, and Johnson said one message rang clear throughout the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ready for the second half of the season. Our mindsets are all aligned, and I think we understand what it takes and what needs to be done,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

It’s been an interesting season for the Hawks, as they’ve had several iterations of this team throughout the year. Six new players have been added<\/a> to the team via trades, and it’s obvious that this isn’t the same group that the Hawks started with this season. With that, they’ve had to build chemistry with the new guys, while the new guys are also trying to find out where they fit.<\/p>\n

In the end, the Hawks still have a solid enough group that can win games, and they’re still in a position to get a better seeding before the end of the season. After playing the most road games in the league in the first half of the season, the Hawks get a break in the second half, and they have one of the easier schedules as far as opponent win percentage.<\/p>\n

As Johnson said, if they can continue to play all 48 minutes, they can give themselves the best chance to keep winning games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The second half of the season is upon us, and the Atlanta Hawks started it on a good…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,677,2990,6,2144],"class_list":["post-614476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-basketball","tag-hawks","tag-jalen-johnson","tag-nba","tag-reporting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116105125626919905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}