AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — At some point it figures the Hawks will be a healthy team again.
It may not be until the playoffs, when center Al Horford could return following pectoral surgery. It might have to wait until All-Star guard Joe Johnson can get his troublesome knee right.
The Hawks believe they’ve shown enough moxie while missing key players that, once they are whole, they can offer a credible challenge to favorites Miami and Chicago in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
“Man, it’s going to be exciting when we get everybody back, playing like we are playing now,” Hawks guard Jeff Teague said. “Guys are coming with energy and effort. When guys can come back, we can do something special. I think everybody can feel that.”
Teague said those words after the Hawks — down two star players and a couple of key reserves and playing on the second night of a back-to-back — lost 89-86 at defending Eastern champion Miami on Wednesday. They had beaten West leader Oklahoma City and playoff-bound Indiana while shorthanded in their previous two games.
The Hawks’ 86-85 defeat at Detroit on Friday took some of the shine off those efforts. But that loss, like other recent defeats, came with an injury-related caveat.
Johnson returned to play against the Pistons after missing six of the seven previous games with tendinitis in his left knee. He scored 18 points in 35 minutes, but missed six of his final nine shots after a 3-for-3 start.
“I thought he looked OK,” Hawks coach Larry Drew said. “I kept asking him how he felt every time he came out, and he said he felt pretty good. We are just going to have to monitor him. His legs were a little weary. You could see that his shots were short.”
Johnson reported no problems with the knee after the game.
“It actually feels great,” Johnson said. “I was a little skeptical at first, but once I got past that mental [block], everything was good.”
Still, Johnson couldn’t connect on the final play.
Drew said the Hawks ran a pick-and-roll with Johnson and Teague to get Rodney Stuckey, a smaller defender, to switch to Johnson. The plan worked, but Johnson settled for a hurried, fadeaway jump shot with Stuckey challenging instead of driving to the basket like Drew wanted.
It was the kind of shot Johnson has converted under pressure before. He made a basket under similar circumstances to force overtime in the Hawks’ 107-101 victory at Detroit on Jan. 4. Johnson also lifted the Hawks to victories at Toronto and Milwaukee with big shots late in those games.
Those performances came in the wake of Horford’s injury, when Johnson scored 20 or more points in eight of 11 games. But Johnson’s production declined as the knee flared up amid the rigors of the compressed schedule.
Johnson played through the pain, but finally sat out in large part because he had lost strength in the knee. He returned to play Friday after testing the knee with several days of workouts.
“We are going to have to keep him out there until he gets his wind back, gets his timing back and gets acclimated again,” Drew said.
Johnson has 26 more regular-season games to work himself back into form for the postseason. The Hawks also expect Willie Green (back) to return soon and are trying to save wear-and-tear on Tracy McGrady’s surgically repaired left knee.
The Hawks have shown defensive grit in spite of the injuries, but their offense has suffered. Horford is their most efficient scorer, and Johnson is their late-game shot-maker. Get those two healthy, and the Hawks may have a chance to make a playoff run.
“Nobody is contenders right now,” Hawks guard Jerry Stackhouse said. “They put that [Heat] team out there as the world beater, and we come in here and competed with them as much as anybody else and felt like we should have won the game. We feel we are a good team. We are not where hope we will be on April 28, but we are getting there.”
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