The New York Knicks started fast and finished strong, cruising to a 126-97 home win over the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first-round series Tuesday night.
Jalen Brunson scored a game-high 39 points to go along with eight assists. Karl-Anthony Towns had 16 points, 14 rebounds and six assists, and OG Anunoby added 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Knicks. New York led by as many as 32 points after taking the lead for good on a Josh Hart 3-pointer that made it 9-6 with 8:41 remaining in the first quarter. The Knicks led by 13 after the opening period, 16 at halftime and by 18 after the third, illustrating just how surgical they were in snatching a 3-2 series lead.
Hawks guard CJ McCollum, who played the role of hero for Atlanta in Games 2 and 3, finished with just six points on 3-of-10 shooting and a team-high four turnovers. Jalen Johnson led the Hawks with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
Here are some takeaways with Game 6 set for Thursday in Atlanta.
Hello, Jalen
Brunson has finally arrived. After four games of fighting Dyson Daniels, after four games of battling Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the real Brunson — the perennial All-NBA scoring maestro — returned Tuesday.
The news wasn’t just that Brunson went for 39 points; it was the way the Knicks used him.
Dating back to Game 3, they started running him around more away from the basketball, providing him with different opportunities to score. Game 5, on top of the pick-and-roll magic in the fourth quarter, was his greatest off-ball game against the Hawks, too.
He sliced around the Knicks’ half-court offense with Towns manning a lead-facilitating role once again and freed himself in the process. Once he caught a rhythm, it no longer mattered that Daniels is a former Defensive Player of the Year runner-up. Brunson caught the Hawks guard with a hesitation in the fourth, and then another to finish an and-1. This was Brunson’s most-efficient performance of the series, but it was also his craftiest. It was the playoff Brunson that Knicks fans have grown accustomed to seeing for the last four seasons. — Fred Katz
Hawks’ starters getting pummeled
Atlanta’s one advantage coming into this series seemed to be that its starting lineup was working better than New York’s. Atlanta’s go-to group of McCollum, Alexander-Walker, Daniels, Johnson and Onyeka Okongwu had a sterling plus-20.3 net rating in 30 games as a unit in the regular season, while New York’s chosen quintet mustered only a plus-2.3 mark in the 41 games it played together.
It hasn’t worked out that way. At all. For the fifth straight game, Atlanta’s starting group finished with a negative net rating, and on this night, it wasn’t even close. The Hawks tried to change the defensive matchups to wrongfoot the Knicks, putting Daniels on Towns, but New York was completely unfazed as Towns burned the Hawks from the “pinch post” time and again.
The Hawks must win those minutes because New York has the clear advantage once the benches get involved. While Jonathan Kuminga gave Atlanta good minutes in Games 2 and 3, he’s been erratic in the three defeats, and no other Hawks reserve has caused even an ounce of worry on the Knicks sideline.
Atlanta didn’t help itself in other areas, with free-throw misses, bizarre bench lineups and, yes, rough minutes for whatever sub Quin Snyder tried. But the core issue heading into Game 6 is that the Hawks need to win the starters vs. starters minutes. So far, they’re 0 of 5. — John Hollinger
Let’s talk about OG
Maybe it’s because Towns has dominated. Maybe it’s because Hart has turned into prime Scottie Pippen. Maybe it’s because Mikal Bridges has been a no-show.
Whatever it is, we shouldn’t go any further in this Knicks-Hawks series without talking about the impact of OG Anunoby.
A case could be made that Anunoby has been New York’s second-best player in this series, and maybe its most consistent. In Tuesday’s Game 5 win, he tallied 17 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and a block. For the series, Anunoby is averaging 20 points and nine rebounds per game, on top of his usual menacing off-ball defense.
That rebounding is really benefiting New York. Anunoby averaged only 5.2 per game during the season. He’s almost doubling that up this series. His ability to control the glass, in addition to the work of Towns and Hart in that department, has been a catalyst in slowing down the Hawks’ offense. Atlanta has been limited in transition because New York has taken care of the ball and gotten huge rebounding performances from several key players. The Hawks have struggled to get both transition and second-chance points over the last few games.
Anunoby has done a lot of everything this series, and it’s a big reason why the Knicks are one win away from advancing. — James L. Edwards III
Time to call for help
After almost every game of this series, I’ve written about who should step up for the Hawks. But after Tuesday, the answer is someone? Anyone? Everyone needs to make something shake in Game 6.
Credit due to the Knicks defense, of course, but Atlanta couldn’t hit anything, not even free throws. The Hawks shot 44.6 percent overall and 31.0 percent on 3s. They were 10 of 17 from the line. McCollum, the hero early in the series, struggled to find his spark. That Hawks bench that was so important a couple of games ago didn’t make much of an impact. And they had only 27 rebounds to the Knicks’ 48.
So, this time, I’ll state the obvious: Atlanta needs everybody to do as much as possible to even the series.
In the last two games, the Hawks have been outscored by 37 points with Johnson, their All-Star forward, on the court. That won’t work for a team that relies on him taking over different facets of the game. Atlanta’s success comes with Johnson leading the way, but who else will help him keep its season alive? Anyone? — Shakeia Taylor