Photo: Gametime
Preseason basketball is supposed to be about everything except the score. Rotations, conditioning, which second-unit guard can actually run an offense — the result is the least important part, and everybody in the building knows it. And then a game like Monday night's happens: tied at 94 with under five minutes left, both benches leaning in, and the final possessions played with a seriousness that nobody bothered to pretend was casual. The Atlanta Hawks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 113-110 at State Farm Arena, and while the win will be forgotten by November, the last five minutes told both teams things they actually needed to know.
The Last Five Minutes
The shape of the finish is easy to trace. Oklahoma City, trailing most of the night, had clawed all the way back — a 30-23 third quarter erased Atlanta's seven-point halftime lead and knotted the game at 79-79 entering the fourth. The Thunder kept pushing, and with 4:54 left the score sat at 94-94, the game fully up for grabs.
From there, Atlanta simply executed better. The Hawks scored 19 points over the final 4:54 — a blistering pace for a closing stretch, especially one played largely by the players fighting for rotation spots — while Oklahoma City managed 16. Atlanta won the fourth quarter 34-31 overall, its highest-scoring period of the night, and did it without leaning on any single closer. The ball moved, the points spread around, and the home team closed a game it had nearly given away. In October, that is the whole exercise. Late-game reps cannot be simulated in practice at anything close to this intensity, and Atlanta's young group just banked some real ones.
Atlanta's Depth Chart Is Talking
Six Hawks reached double figures, and the distribution is the story. Jock Landale was the most efficient Hawk on the floor: 17 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists in just 21 minutes, a big man's line that bends a defense because the passing keeps help defenders home. Nickeil Alexander-Walker matched the two-way brief with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, the kind of connective performance that wins a player trust in a real rotation.
Behind them came the youth. Zuby Ejiofor delivered 15 points and 9 rebounds in 23 minutes, repeatedly finishing plays around the rim. Jalen Wilson added 12 points and 8 rebounds across a team-high 30 minutes for Atlanta. RayJ Dennis ran the second unit like a veteran — 13 points and a team-high 7 assists in 24 minutes — and Kobe Johnson scored 10 points in just 10 minutes, a per-minute outburst that coaching staffs notice even in preseason. Asa Newell, meanwhile, grabbed 10 rebounds in 27 minutes, doing the unglamorous work that keeps young forwards on the floor.
None of this decides a single regular-season game. All of it matters for the question Atlanta has to answer before opening night, roughly ten days away: when the rotation tightens to nine or ten names, whose minutes survive? Monday said the competition is real — and that the Hawks' bench, in particular, may be better than the league assumes.
Photo: Gametime
Oklahoma City's Young Core Got Real Reps
If Atlanta's night was about depth, Oklahoma City's was about development minutes for the next wave — and the next wave showed up. Bennett Stirtz led all scorers with 26 points, adding 4 rebounds and 5 assists in 38 minutes, carrying the Thunder's offense for long stretches. Brooks Barnhizer played all 40 minutes and produced 20 points and 8 rebounds. Aday Mara, the young big, put together the night's most complete stat line: 17 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists, a double-double with playmaking on top.
Josh Dix added 16 points and a team-high 7 assists, and Otega Oweh quietly double-doubled with 11 points and 10 rebounds. This is exactly how a Western Conference contender should be using its preseason: its established core's standard is set, and the marginal wins in October come from finding out which of the kids can survive real fourth-quarter possessions against another team's best available five. Stirtz and Mara, in particular, looked like they belonged in the deep water.
The Thunder will not lose sleep over the loss itself. They outscored Atlanta 30-23 in the third to flip the game, showed they could defend their way back into a road game, and then lost the closing stretch by a possession. That is a film session, not a concern.
How the Game Flowed
Atlanta controlled the early going, winning the first quarter 29-28 and the second 27-21 to lead 56-49 at halftime, its best defensive quarter of the night holding Oklahoma City to 21. The third quarter belonged entirely to the Thunder — 30-23, the game tied at 79 — and the fourth became a shootout, 34-31 to the Hawks, the highest-scoring quarter of the evening for both teams. Three lead shapes, one possession at the end. For a preseason Monday, that is more basketball than anyone had a right to expect.
It also made for a useful mirror. Atlanta's best stretches came when its size and passing — Landale and Ejiofor combining for 32 points and 15 rebounds — bent the floor. Oklahoma City's best came when its guards attacked in waves. Both identities looked plausible. Both benches got answers.
What It Means — and What It Doesn't
The honest caveat comes first: preseason results do not count, the rotations were experimental, and Oklahoma City was evaluating young players with the heaviest minutes rather than chasing a win. Nobody should reorder the Eastern or Western Conference off this game, and we won't.
But execution is execution, and Atlanta's final five minutes were the real thing — organized, unselfish, and just calm enough. For a Hawks team trying to matter in a crowded East, the difference between a good season and a forgettable one is often exactly this: whether the second unit can hold and close games in the minutes the starters rest. On Monday night, ten days out from the games that count, Atlanta's depth made its case out loud. Keep up with the rest of the preseason and the road to opening night on our NBA page, the full Sports front, and the Previously news front.
Final score and all player statistics verified against the ESPN box score for Atlanta 113, Oklahoma City 110.
