As the preseason comes to a close, the Hawks are finally getting healthy, blowing out a depleted Heat team 127-92 on Thursday at State Farm Arena in the exhibition finale.
The Hawks’ regular season begins Thursday when they host the Mavericks.
Let’s break down what we learned from the Hawks’ final exhibition game:
Finally, the Hawks are approaching full strength: Just in time for the regular season, the Hawks are getting healthy. Clint Capela was available to play after slowly ramping up his activity, rehabbing from a PRP injection in his left Achilles. His addition completely transforms the Hawks’ defense and rebounding, and Trae Young, back from his right quad contusion, transforms the offense. De’Andre Hunter (right knee injury maintenance), Kevin Huerter (left ankle injury management) and Delon Wright (tweaked his left ankle in second exhibition game) were good to go, as well.
The only player out who’s expected to be ready to play by the regular season was Danilo Gallinari (left shoulder soreness).
Hawks’ core looks ready to go: The Heat started a lineup of Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Caleb Martin, KZ Okpala and Udonis Haslem, so suffice it to say, the Hawks were expected to win in a blowout. What’s more important is how healthy and in-sync they looked heading into the regular season (finishing with 33 assists and only 10 turnovers), after being banged up for much of the preseason. Young sliced through the defense with ease, Capela overpowered everyone in the paint and Hunter’s shot looked smooth, going 4-for-6 from 3-point range, finishing with 19 points, three rebounds, three assists and a steal.
After the game, Young (27 points, 15 assists) said he was feeling well, Capela (10 points, 10 rebounds) said he felt well and in-shape and Hunter said his knee is better and he’s approaching 100%.
“We’ve just got to continue to stay healthy and take care of our bodies. … If we’re all on the court together, we’re a pretty good team,” Young said.
On a deep team, we got a glimpse of this season’s rotations: The purpose of this game, from McMillan’s perspective, was to act as somewhat of a dress rehearsal for the regular season in terms of rotations. They started a lineup of Young, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Hunter, John Collins and Capela, with Huerter the first sub off the bench (he replaced Capela, who was on a 12-15 minute restriction). Then, Cam Reddish came on for Bogdanovic. In the second quarter, we saw a second unit of Delon Wright, Reddish, Huerter, Solomon Hill and Gorgui Dieng play together.
A healthy Gallinari would typically be in that mix instead of Hill, and Dieng will be the go-to at backup center until Onyeka Okongwu comes back from shoulder surgery, likely in January. Rookies Sharife Cooper and Jalen Johnson, plus Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, got some garabge time minutes in the fourth quarter.
Hawks coach Nate McMillan welcomed getting a glimpse of a healthy starting lineup.
“They didn’t play a lot of minutes together last year, especially toward the end of the year, and it’s really important that we get those guys out there and allow them to get a feel for each other and build that chemistry, learn each other’s tendencies, and that’s good for them as well as for me,” McMillan said.
