Watch the floor feel less wobbly
Atlanta's recent upswing is being discussed through its result against Brooklyn, and Jalen Johnson's return is part of that read. Fine. The cleaner way to watch this is not through the mood of a mini-run. It is through the shape of the possession.
When a team gets a real bump from a returning piece, the floor usually starts to look calmer before it looks explosive. The first action flows into the second. The ball does not seem stranded between ideas. A possession has a lane, then another lane, instead of stopping at the first closed door. If Johnson's return is doing something meaningful, that is the picture to look for against Brooklyn again: not just another encouraging result, but a steadier offensive outline from trip to trip.
The judgment
If that shape shows up again, Atlanta's uptick becomes easier to take seriously because it starts to look repeatable. If it does not, then this is probably being read too generously. A short run can look lively without being stable. The next Brooklyn reference point is useful precisely because it gives the Hawks a chance to show that Johnson's bump is changing the geometry of their possessions, not just decorating the mood around them.