The Garden was the place to be last night as the New York Knicks faced the Atlanta Hawks for an important game five. All the celebrities and fans were ready for gametime. Every person in attendance received white “New York Forever” towels. New York came off a dominant game four win and they started off with the same intensity.
Dyson Daniels got the scoring started for the Hawks with a floater in the lane. Jalen Brunson and Daniels would have the first four points of the game for their respective teams. Jalen Johnson got an and-one against Karl-Anthony Towns that cut the lead to one after the made free throw. Gabe Vincent threw a lob to Jonathan Kuminga who finished it with authority. Mitchell Robinson slammed down a tip dunk that got the Garden crowd roaring. The Knicks closed the first quarter on a 12-2 run as they led 35-22. Jordan Clarkson had five points with the quarter winding down.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker made a three out of the corner for the visitors to begin the second quarter. Towns responded with an and-one. Jose Alvarado contributed early in the second scoring seven points. OG Anunoby bullied Johnson inside and threw down a standing dunk. Brunson threw a no-look pass to a wide open Josh Hart that drew ooh’s and ahh’s from the crowd. New York had a 3-on-1 fast break that culminated in a Brunson layup. The Knicks had their largest lead at the time at 22. New York led 64-48 at halftime.
Brunson and Onyeka Okongwu traded back-to-back threes to begin the third quarter. Alexander-Walker flipped a wild and-one with his left hand off the glass. Miles McBride threw a lob to Robinson that forced a timeout for the Hawks. Alexander-Walker had 10 points for the Hawks in the quarter. New York led 90-72 entering the fourth quarter.
Brunson scored on three straight possessions that had the Garden crowd hyped. Brunson had insane back-to-back plays of footwork where one play ended up in an and-one. Brunson had 17 points in the fourth quarter. Most of New York’s starters checked out and received a standing ovation. Jeremy Sochan scored 10 points in the final minutes of the game. New York won 126-97 and took a 3-2 lead in the series.
Brunson had 39 points that led the way for the Knicks. Towns and Anunoby each had double-doubles. Alvarado had 12 points in 12 minutes off the bench. Johnson led the way with an 18 point double-double for the Hawks. Daniels had 17 points and CJ McCollum struggled, scoring six points on 3-of-10 field goal shooting.
I spoke to Karl-Anthony Towns on how important it was on setting the tone early in game four and game five. Towns said “I thought it was great for our team to come out with that physicality and execution. It was great. We’ll watch film tomorrow and improve. I think one of the things for sure we’ll talk about is our discipline. I thought we fouled too much, I talked about it at halftime, I thought our team did a great job of, one thing we talk about is the starts and we came out in the last two games with great starts, so that’s an improvement of who we’ve been this whole season.”
I spoke to Jalen Brunson on his 39 points and how important it was for him to get to an early start and continue it the rest of the way. Brunson said “It was just important for us to come out the way we did, regardless of who’s doing the scoring or whatever. I think just us being on a string of both sides of the ball really helped us. We were locked in mentally and the way we were playing. It’s how I want to play, there’s still a lot of things I think we can do better and not have lapses but I think our mentality walking into the game is something we need to continue to have.”
New York leads the series 3-2 and have chance to close it out in Atlanta for game six this Thursday April 29 at 7 p.m.
