The New York Knicks have played with fire all season. All of their best stretches of play either preceded, or were fueled by, a brutal display from the group overall. But they cracked the code to generating sustainably healthy possessions on both ends of the floor in Game 4 against the Atlanta Hawks. And they haven't looked back since.
New York put the ultimate bow on their series turnaround by taking an 83-36 lead by halftime of Game 6 in Atlanta. That margin, a 47-point advantage, was the largest halftime lead in NBA playoff history according to Yahoo. How's that for the Knicks living up to their high expectations?
Knicks' regular season struggles carried into playoffs, but not for long
New York's halftime lead was three points away from tying the largest halftime advantage in all NBA history. While they didn't match the Mavericks' 50-point lead over the Clippers from December 2020, they did wind up with the biggest playoff halftime lead.
The Knicks came out playing mediocre basketball against the Hawks, at best. While their style of play, and level of execution, was certainly enough to get by in Game 1, Mike Brown's group got a brutal reminder of just how small the margin for error can be in the postseason.
They dropped both Games 2 and 3, each by one point. They became the first team in NBA playoff history to lose two consecutive games in regulation by the smallest possible margin. And they clearly took it as inspiration to lock in and start playing up to their potential.
Knicks clearly needed to face adversity to unlock their potential
New York's renewed fervor manifested itself in the form of better execution with regard to their physicality, something Karl-Anthony Towns pointed out after their Game 5 blowout win.
It felt like with each slam dunk from OG Anunoby, each open 3-pointer from Jalen Brunson, and each putback layup from Towns that the team exorcised another one of the demons that had been inhabiting entire condominiums between New York's ears throughout the regular season – and even the start of this series.
Anunoby highlighting Knicks' dominance amid series turnaround
And every time the Knicks got a boost of energy from a score or stop, they were taking it directly from the Hawks. No player showed that better than Anunoby, who averaged 21 points per game in the series on 61% shooting (and 56.6% from 3-point land). He helped the Knicks outscore the Hawks by 84 points in the 115 minutes he played throughout the series, according to SNY's Ian Begley.
New York spent all season long showing fans that they needed things to get tough for them to get going. Why were the playoffs going to be any different? Once they fell behind, and things started getting real, they flipped the script on Atlanta entirely. And to start Game 6, they did it historically.
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