By Donnell Suggs | The Atlanta Voice
The “Let’s Go Knicks” chants grew louder as the game clock wound down on Saturday night. The New York Knicks, with their backs against the wall after losing game three of their first-round playoff series with the Atlanta Hawks, tied the series following a 114-98 win. For the Atlanta Hawks, there will be another home game, Thursday, April 30, but the chance to take a commanding lead in this series is now gone.
“We didn’t do the things we needed to do to have success against them. We’ve got to do better,” said Atlanta Hawks head coach Quin Snyder after the game.
The Knicks got a big game from Karl-Anthony Towns, who had a team-high 10 assists on his way to a triple-double: 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and two steals. Both Towns and OG Anunoby (22 points) had 10 rebounds, and Josh Hart (10 points, three assists, two steals) grabbed nine rebounds en route to winning the overall rebounding battle 43-38.
The Hawks’ last lead in the game came when they went ahead 14-13 after CJ McCollum (team-high 17 points on 8-15 shooting) hit a three-pointer with 6:56 remaining in the first quarter. The Knicks led 27020 after the first quarter and by 14 at halftime.
Game six of this series will be back at State Farm Arena on Thursday. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
“This is a series,” said Snyder. “You can’t get too high or too low.”
Game six of this series will be back at State Farm Arena on Thursday. Photo by Donnell Suggs/The Atlanta Voice
Game five of the series will take place in Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. Game 6 will be in Atlanta on Thursday. And if necessary, a game seven will be back in New York City on Saturday, May 2. If the Hawks are going to be able to win in New York next week, they are going to have to shoot better from three. Atlanta was 10-41 from beyond the arc. Five of those three-pointers came from the newly minted Most Improved Player award winner, first-year guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker (15 points, six turnovers). A key to the Hawks’ midseason resurgence this season, Alexander-Walker, has not had a bad series, but he hasn’t had a great individual game yet either. Another Hawks star that hasn’t been at his best is All-Star forward Jalen Johnson (14 points, three rebounds, and five assists). Johnson was 4-12 from the field on Saturday night and at times looked like the moment was too big for him.
Atlanta did get 10 points each from guard Gabe Vincent and forward Jonathan Kuminga, and that helps extend Snyder’s rotation as this series continues. The same could be said for the Knicks and their first-year head coach, Mike Brown. The Knicks got 35 points from their bench, including six points from former Georgia Tech point guard Jose Alvarado. The key to Alvarado’s impact was his three steals over nearly 14 minutes on the court.
Knicks All-Star guard Jalen Brunson, the latest face of the franchise, came into the game averaging just under 28 points per game this series. Brunson finished the game with 19 points on 7-18 shooting from the field. He had six turnovers, never made a scoring run like he did in game one and late in game three, and looked like he was uninterested in the game at times. There was a moment when he and his father, a former McDonald’s All-American, Temple University star, and NBA guard, Rick Brunson, an assistant coach on Brown’s staff, got into a verbal disagreement.
Brunson wasn’t on Snyder’s mind after the game, though. He credited Josh Hart’s defensive efforts. “He guarded everybody,” Snyder said.
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