Jalen Johnson’s mic drop after dominant fourth quarter vs. 76ers: ‘I’m always locked in’

ATLANTA – At the end of close games, sometimes all you need is your star player to get you over the edge. Jalen Johnson, who has been the star for the Atlanta Hawks all year, came alive late in the fourth quarter to lead his team to a 125-116 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.

It started with a three-pointer midway through the fourth that gave the Hawks their biggest lead of the game at eight points. Down the stretch, he drove by Kelly Oubre Jr. and dunked over him and Dominick Barlow.

Jalen is TAKING OVER in the 4th pic.twitter.com/Yq3bMvDKC1

— Atlanta HaWWWWWWks (@ATLHawks) March 8, 2026

With less than two minutes left, Adem Bona became his next victim, as he drove past him and got to the rim to finish a one-handed dunk.

JALEN JOHNSON Y'ALL pic.twitter.com/UbOitpTQPm

— Atlanta HaWWWWWWks (@ATLHawks) March 8, 2026

After every one of those shots, he made sure to let the crowd know – and the 76ers – that he had turned it up a notch. The younger generation might call it aura farming. Some would even say he was locked in down that stretch. For Johnson, he says it’s nothing new to him, and it led him to finish with 35 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists.

“I think I’m always locked in,” Johnson said to reporters after the game. “Obviously, you get in when the momentum is high, and you’re on a run. Emotions are running much higher than at the beginning of the game. So maybe the emotional piece of it looks like locking in more.”

Johnson has shown what he can do during these moments late in games. Whether that’s making a clutch jump shot, the right pass, or dunking over the opposition, he knows how to break a defense down by putting his skills to use.

“He’s making the right play, and sometimes the right play is throwing a little lob to Dyson [Daniels]. Sometimes it’s just getting on the rim. And sometimes it’s taking your jumper when people are playing off you. I think he did all those things, and he did them really efficiently. One of his best games, I think,” Quin Snyder said.

Even his teammates were impressed with what he did.

“It was amazing,” Nickeil Alexander-Walker said. “Just the aggression, he played with decisiveness. Getting downhill, didn’t settle. It was very timely and in a time when we needed it. He just kept rolling, and we were all behind him.”

It didn’t start all that well for the Hawks, and they had to build up to get to that point. They surrendered 73 points in the first half and committed 19 turnovers. The second half was completely different, as they held the 76ers to 43 points and caused them to turn the ball over 10 times.

“It was just about taking guys out of their rhythm,” Alexander-Walker said. “We had worked up until this point to become a way better team, competing-wise and just defensively. I felt like in the first half we took a step back, but then we quickly made up for it, and we were able to make adjustments on the fly.”

“It was a good halftime,” Johnson said. “Guys talked, and we knew we were going to go on our run eventually. We came out the gate, and we came out aggressive and swinging. We kind of set the tone on how the rest of the game was going to go in those first couple of minutes of the third quarter.”

Once the Hawks found a rhythm in the fourth, it was give the ball to Johnson and get out of the way. Unfortunately, the 76ers didn’t get the memo.

“I just kind of knew what to expect with them being an aggressive defensive team, and I just tried to match that as best as possible and kind of let things fall where they may,” Johnson said.

With the win, the Hawks have won six games in a row, and have the opportunity to build on that streak next week with the Dallas Mavericks upcoming.

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