NEW YORK — As “Knicks in six” chants rained down the bowl of Madison Square Garden, the Hawks punted the second consecutive game of the series against the Knicks. When the Hawks pulled their starters with 4:09 to play in Tuesday’s Game 5, they trailed the Knicks 113-89.
The Hawks would wind up falling to the Knicks, 126-97, and now trail 3-2 in their best-of-seven, first-round Eastern Conference playoff series.
Quick stats: Jalen Johnson had 18 points, 10 rebounds and six assists. Dyson Daniels had 17 points and five assists. Onyeka Okongwu and Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 16 points apiece.
The Knicks’ Jalen Brunson had 39 points and eight assists. OG Anunoby had 17 points and 10 rebounds. Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points and 14 rebounds.
Turning point
The Hawks lost their grip on the game early. They trailed the Knicks 21-16 with 4:13 in the first quarter when they finished rotating their second unit into the game. But the Hawks did not get the needed production out of that lineup.
The Knicks went on a 13-6 run and they sliced them up in the paint. Josh Hart attacked the basket, pulled up and drew contact off Johnson, who put the brakes on too late. Brunson followed with a quick layup on a runout before Towns got separation on Kuminga and hit a layup.
Knicks Jordan Clarkson hit a runner and drew a foul before the Hawks began to foul Knicks center Mitchell Robinson.
The Hawks made just one bucket in the final three minutes of the quarter.
Highlight play
The Hawks struggled to get stops and couldn’t seem to make many shots either. But in the third quarter, Alexander-Walker tried to get the Hawks going.
After nearly turning the ball over on a shovel pass to a cutting Johnson, Alexander-Walker recovered the loose ball. With the shot clock winding down, he played through some contact from Towns. But he put the shot up with his left hand and earned continuation.
What they said
“They did what they were supposed to do, protecting home court. Their defense never really let us establish consistently how we need to play to beat them and we have to be more committed to it’s really like imposing your will, you know, on the offensive end, really moving and passing, you can feel possessions where that occurs, and that’s when we have, you know, when we’re efficient or have success.” — Hawks coach Quin Snyder on the difference between the two teams.
“I just think that their mindset was to come out and try and bully us and be physical and they did that. They pushed us under on rebounds. They set really good screens. They did all the little things.” — Daniels on the Knicks “manhandling” the Hawks.
“Overall, we just got to play through it. We can’t let the physicality take us out of what we want to do. … We’re not really playing like ourselves. We’re not running. We’re not moving the ball. We’re not spacing. Things that we did to get us to this point of the year, we’re not doing well enough. So we have to do that on Thursday.” — Okongwu on how the Hawks match the Knicks’ physicality.
Up next
The Hawks return to State Farm Arena for Game 6 of the series Thursday.
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