Hawks close preseason vs. OKC: Dort and Wiggins stare down the Thunder that built them

The last tune-up before it counts lands with the most on-the-nose opponent the rebuild could draw. Lu Dort and Aaron Wiggins both had their careers made in Oklahoma City, and Monday night they host that exact franchise at State Farm Arena in the Hawks' preseason finale. It's exhibition basketball, sure — but it's also the first time the 2-1 Hawks get a look at the team that produced half their wing rotation, with tip set for 7 p.m. and the real thing coming in Orlando on Oct. 21.

The revenge-game energy is real, even in October

Dort is the headliner — the All-Defensive wing Atlanta pried loose in the three-team deal that sent the No. 1 overall pick to Dallas, the centerpiece of the defense-first pivot. Wiggins was the quieter get, a rotation-tested winner from OKC's championship and Western Conference finals runs. Both know the Thunder's system, its scouting, its tendencies. It's one preseason game against a club that's winless in the exhibition season so far, so the scoreboard doesn't matter — but how the two handle their former mates on the ball is a genuinely interesting look.

The bench that got wrecked has spent a week answering

The arc of this preseason has been the depth chart. Against Memphis the second unit got cooked in a 132-123 loss. In San Antonio, with C.J. McCollum and Wiggins back, the exact same group flipped a 19-point deficit to win 123-116. Saturday in Indiana the Hawks won ugly, 119-117, ice-cold from three (13-of-45) but 28-of-30 at the line while Jalen Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu carried the scoring. That's 2-1 and, more importantly, a second unit that looked at its own weak first outing and got better in the two games since.

The lineup picture gets its last look before Orlando

Quin Snyder has spent the whole month sorting who starts and who closes. The backcourt crunch — McCollum, rookie Kingston Flemings, Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker — mostly decides itself on minutes, and OKC is the final chance to test combinations against a real defensive identity. Flemings has taken his run in stride, Asa Newell has filled the box score in flashes, and the roster crunch that started camp at 17 settled into 15 a while back. Monday is the last dress rehearsal, then Orlando and the actual season.

Bird Gang bottom line

Nobody's reading meaning into a preseason finale, least of all against a Thunder team that sat its stars in spots and comes in 0-2. The fair read: Dort and Wiggins against their old club is the fun subplot, and the bench getting steadier across three weeks is the thing the rebuild actually needed to see. Enjoy the tune-up, then the regular season's a week out — basketball season might not be on the pick'em board, but the group chat is always open.

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