The Atlanta Hawks found themselves on the wrong side of a pummeling, falling to the New York Knicks 121-106 at State Farm Arena on Saturday afternoon. Trae Young led the Hawks in scoring with 16 points, and Terance Mann and Caris LeVert both added 14 points to the Atlanta cause. For the Knicks — without Jalen Brunson — Karl-Anthony Towns led with 30 points and 11 rebounds while OG Anunoby added 24 points.
Heading into this contest — the first night of a back-to-back for the Hawks — both teams are essentially locked into their regular season fate. The Knicks are going to finish in the number three seed, while the Hawks are headed for the Play-In Tournament, although with more to play for in the sense that their seeding is certainly not final while the Knicks’ almost certainly is.
With this in mind, you would have expected the Hawks — who have lost two games in a row heading into this game — to produce a much-needed response at home.
What unfolded on Saturday afternoon…was not that.
The Knicks did not waste a ton of time running their lead to double-digits in the first quarter, in part due to the Hawks’ turnovers or missed shots directly fuelling the Knicks’ offense.
A blocked effort for Zaccharie Risacher inside fuels a transition fastbreak for former Hawk Delon Wright:
A contested three from Young ends in a miss, with Josh Hart rushing up the floor after contesting Young’s shot, where he receives the ball following the outlet pass, scoring at the rim and drawing the foul:
A missed three from Onyeka Okongwu in the corner is rebounded by OG Anunoby, who pushes in transition and bodies past Risacher to score at the rim:
The Hawks committed seven first quarter turnovers, with this Dyson Daniels turnover leading to another basket for Anunoby in transition:
The Hawks were just out of sorts in the first quarter, exemplified by Georges Niang and LeVert miscommunicating on this possession, with Niang rolling the ball out of bounds with LeVert coming towards the ball:
The Knicks shot 61% in the first quarter but it was the second quarter that saw the Knicks completely take control of this game behind a 40 point quarter on 75% shooting from the field and 7-of-9 from three. The Hawks, in contrast, shot 33% from the field and 3-of-15 from three. This…is a pretty good way to end up trailing, first, by 20 points and then by 31 points in the first half.
The Knicks shot an unbelievable percentage, the Hawks’ defense was poor…both of these were true last night. We’ll take a brief look at both of these in action.
From the Knicks’ side first, the Hawks occasionally helped them fuel their offense as they did in the first quarter as Young turns the ball over here, leading to the Bridges basket:
This wasn’t the only case of the Hawks being the makers of their own misfortune, as this save from Mann ends right in the hands of Towns, who is fouled by Dominick Barlow as he scores the basket:
One of Barlow’s three fouls in five first half minutes — not ideal on a night the Hawks are without depth and size — in itself another aspect the Hawks were sorely beaten by the Knicks.
Towns in particular poses a threat inside with his size and this was the case in the second quarter:
If Okongwu is caught having to cover off the ball-handler it leaves the roll-man free to roll to the rim, and Precious Achiuwa is able to roll with force to the rim and finishes with authority:
The Knicks hit seven threes, including a stretch where the Knicks hit six threes in a row as part of a 27-6 run that saw the Knicks build their lead from 10 to 31 points and the game completely out of the Hawks’ control.
Offensively for the Hawks, their offense in the second quarter was largely kept to the perimeter. The Knicks did an excellent job preventing penetration and being physical, and the Hawks compounded their defensive misfortunes by missing offensively.
The Knicks moves bodies well as the Hawks move the ball well, in this case it ends in Niang taking a contested shot and missing the three. When Mann rebounds the ball, he takes an ill-timed three after backing up:
“That’s the physicality of their defense, that’s how they’re built and it impacted us,” said Hawks head coach Quin Snyder postgame.
A decent look from Risacher, set up by Mann, is missed — one of many decent looks from three the Hawks did not convert:
Here, some good ball movement from the Hawks leads to another Niang shot in the corner for a three, but again it’s missed:
The Hawks struggled, while the Knicks shot a ludicrously high percentage…if just one of those things occurred that’s certainly one way for the Hawks to fall behind, but when they occur simultaneously then the outcome is as was seen on Saturday afternoon — an utter blowout.
“Part of when we’re good is when we’ve made shots and hit threes,” said Snyder. “When you find yourself where we are at halftime and we’re down where we are there’s no easy answer for those questions. Shots goes in and that seems like the right thing: they don’t go in. We weren’t stopping anybody anyway.”
The Hawks made a small run to reduce the lead to 22 points, but another 11-0 burst from the Knicks ripped any momentum the Hawks had and, from here, there was nothing the Hawks offered to get back into this game. With six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Snyder — with an eye on tomorrow’s fixture against the Utah Jazz — waved the white flag and sent in the reserves. The final margin of 15 points doesn’t, in any way, reflect how far apart the two sides were on Saturday afternoon — 30 points would have served a much fairer reflection on the gulf between the two sides.
The Knicks were superior in almost every facet: they took care of the ball, they were aggressive, physical, moved well defensively, punished the Hawks’ sloppiness, punished the Hawks’ lack of size, and caught fire from three. Postgame, it was clear that the Hawks knew they were second-best across the board.
“From the tip their aggressiveness and every manifestation of the game knocked us back,” said Snyder. “We have to be more focused on that. Every play has challenges in that regard, whether it’s running, defensively, you can point to anything. Everything starts and flows from there. We’re at a point in the year where we need to be ready to go tomorrow night, is what it comes down to. Establish that mindset, and we’ve had that. This is what it looks like when we’re not, especially during a certain stretch where we lost the game.”
“They were way more aggressive than us,” added Terance Mann postgame. “They made shots, we weren’t that aggressive on the offensive end, we weren’t getting to the paint and making the right decisions. We had a couple of wide open looks but those didn’t fall. They made shots and they were way more physical, way more aggressive than us. You can tell that was their mentality heading into the game and I think Karl-Anthony (Town) set the tone.”
Both teams played in a back-to-back situation on Wednesday/Thursday, heading for another one today, when asked if rest was a factor in this game Mann pointed to a lack of focus and execution of the gameplan.
“Rest isn’t the issue, we’ve just got to be locked in on what we’re trying to do, we’ve got to figure out what we’re trying to do,” said Mann. “We’ve got away from that these last couple of losses. Once we come together as a team and figure out exactly what we’re trying to do, we’ve just got to come out and execute it.”
“There’s got to be that urgency at this point (of the season),” added Snyder postgame.
The Hawks, at times, looked exasperated on the floor at times as the offense fell apart. Young started the game with two made threes but this was as good as it got for Young, who looked visibly frustrated at times on the court — it was not one of his finer games, finishing with 16 points on 5-of-15 from the field, not helped of course by the Knicks’ tough, physical defense, in which he was doubled often. What compounded this was that the Hawks missed a lot of shots around Young, with Niang in particular struggling to hit, shooting 5-of-16 from the field and 3-of-13 from three.
Okongwu was notably, and unusually, poor in this game, too — he was poor on the ball (four turnovers), made unforced errors defensively rebounding the ball, didn’t provide a ton of relief for Young on screening actions, and struggled to contain the Knicks’ size on the defensive end (and didn’t have a lot of help around him).
Other than an offensive burst from Mann, the Hawks were poor across the board offensively — this is not just limited to Okongwu — but as Snyder said, they weren’t stopping anyone on defense anyways; part of that is due to the Hawks’ disadvantages in this matchup, and the Knicks’ incredibly hot shooting.
“I think it’s always tough to react right after the game but they played harder than us, from the start they were more physical and played really hard,” said Zaccharie Risacher. “It was an issue for us in the first half. They shot the ball pretty well, they were efficient. We couldn’t find a way to stop that.”
It was a horrid game for the Hawks with little else to really note: the second half was essentially a write-off, it was just a disaster for the Hawks. Now, they are two games adrift of the Orlando Magic, and while that would normally be a disaster with five games remaining, two of those games are against the Orlando Magic.
The Hawks will need to be careful and take care of business; while they’re not finished in the battle for seventh they’re only one and 1.5 games ahead of the Bulls and Heat for the ninth and 10th seeds. Fortunately, the schedule favors the Hawks, beginning with a game against the team with the worst record in the league, the Utah Jazz, on Sunday.
The Hawks (36-41) are back in action against the Utah Jazz (16-62) at State Farm Arena. An important game to take care of business, especially at home.
Until next time!
