There was no secret to what the New York Knicks were going to do Saturday night in the opening game of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals.
Nor do the Atlanta Hawks expect there to be any mystery Monday night.
The Knicks will look to take a commanding lead in first-round clash Monday night, when they host the Hawks in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series.
The Knicks didn’t trail for the final three-plus quarters of Game 1 Saturday night, when they held off a late comeback by the visiting Hawks to earn a 113-102 victory.
Jalen Brunson scored 19 of his game-high 28 points in the first quarter for the Knicks, who improved to 6-2 in series openers over the last three years.
Brunson drained just one field goal over the final three quarters Saturday, but fellow starters OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges combined for 54 points on 17-of-32 shooting in the last 36 minutes.
The balanced attack is nothing new for the Knicks, whose starters combined to average 89.2 points per game during the regular season.
“We feel like the team is deep and anybody can get going at any time,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said. “For us, it’s about sacrificing and not worrying about shots, minutes or anything like that.”
The Knicks, who allowed the fifth-fewest points in the league (110.1) while also limiting opponents to 46 percent shooting during the regular season, also recovered from a slow start to clamp down defensively upon the Hawks in the second half.
“I think coming into tonight, we kind of expected the Knicks to just play their style of basketball,” Hawks forward Jalen Johnson said. “I think we did a good job of coming out prepared for that. And then I think in the second half, we’ve just got to continue to play our brand of basketball, continue to play how we play.”
Atlanta, which ranked sixth in the NBA with 118.5 points per game and fifth in 3-point shooting at 37.1 percent, trailed 57-55 at halftime after shooting 45.5%, including 50% (8 of 16) from long distance.
But the Hawks had just 19 points in the third quarter and shot 28.6% (6-of-21) from 3-point land in the second half. The 102 points were tied for the sixth-fewest Atlanta has scored in the 43 games following the trade of Trae Young on Jan. 9.
“Our level of physicality without fouling was really good in the second half,” Brown said.
The Hawks didn’t heat up until the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, when they hit a trio of 3-pointers during an 11-0 run that cut a 19-point deficit to 106-98.
“The formula for us and our identity has been to run and move the ball,” Hawks head coach Quin Snyder said. “And it’s not like we didn’t do that, but we need to do more of it.”
–Field Level Media
