Jalen Brunson led the way once again, scoring 39 points on 15-for-23 shooting and adding eight assists, with just one turnover.
NEW YORK — If point differential mattered, the first round series between the New York Knicks and the Atlanta Hawks would be over right now. Over five games, the Knicks have outscored the Hawks by 54 points.
Game 5 was the Knicks’ most dominant performance of all, a 126-97 victory that gave them a 3-2 lead in a series they trailed just four days earlier. If a possession or two had gone their way in Game 2 or Game 3, the Knicks would be in the Eastern Conference semifinals for the fourth straight year. But the Hawks are still alive, having shot 10-for-13 on clutch shots and winning each those two games by a single point.
The Knicks made sure there would be no clutch shots in this one, taking control late in the first quarter on Tuesday and never leading by fewer than 10 points after that.
Jalen Brunson led the way once again, scoring 39 points on 15-for-23 shooting and adding eight assists, with just one turnover.
Here are some notes, quotes, numbers and film as the Knicks put the Hawks on the brink of elimination:
1. Brunson takes over late in the clock
In general, teams do not want to be playing late in the shot clock. For every team, efficiency is highest early in the clock and goes down as time ticks off.
But these are the playoffs, when the defenses are better, and also better prepared to take away the offense’s primary actions. So late-clock situations are more common.
And the Knicks have Brunson, maybe the best in the league at getting a bucket late in the clock. In the regular season, league-average effective field goal percentage in the last seven seconds of the shot clock was 47.1%. Brunson’s was 53.2% and he ranked second with 157 total buckets in the last seven seconds.
Over the five games in this series, the Knicks have taken 54 more shots than the Hawks in the last seven seconds of the shot clock. They weren’t particularly efficient late in the clock through the first three games, but over Games 4 and 5, the Knicks have shot 25-for-50, including 6-for-13 from 3-point range in the last six seconds.
On Tuesday, Brunson was 5-for-7 in the last seven seconds of the shot clock, just killing the Hawks when they were so close to getting a stop.
Midway through the second quarter, Dyson Daniels stopped a Brunson drive and forced him to give up the ball with seven seconds on the clock …
But Daniels’ work was not done. He was able to deny a handoff to Brunson, but the Knicks’ star kept moving and gained separation from his defender by curling around Karl-Anthony Towns in the high post. Towns hit Brunson cutting to the hoop and he had an easy layup with less than two seconds left on the clock …
In the fourth quarter, Brunson put the game away with some more standard (though not unspectacular) late-clock bucket-getting. He isolated against Jalen Johnson and Daniels on consecutive possessions and beat them both with up-and-under moves as the clock wound down …
“Come playoff time,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said afterward, “you have to be able to execute different levels of the clock. Obviously you want to play fast, so you’re not going to get to set defense all the time. But that’s not going to always work in the playoffs.
“Our guys seem to not panic when it comes to, you know, eight… seven… six seconds on the shot clock. And I’ve always felt the better teams are able to do that.
“To me, that’s a sign of a mature team, and that’s a sign of a good team. Just like a good player, you know, being able to score all three levels. It’s almost identical to the shot clock, early, middle and late, without panicking. And our group has done a really good job of it, especially Jalen.”
2. Knicks are keeping the Hawks in check
The Hawks were a slightly better-than-average offensive team in the regular season, but they have scored an efficient 119.6 points per 100 possessions (sixth best) as they won 19 of their final 24 games.
In this series, they’ve scored just 106.9 per 100, the second worst mark for any team not involved in the Detroit-Orlando car crash. In four of the five games, the Hawks have scored well below league-average efficiency.
Some of that is some poor shooting from open 3-point shooters. The Knicks haven’t been perfect defensively.
But they’ve been very good. The Hawks had some success attacking Brunson down the stretch of Game 2, but Towns has passed the test. In fact, he had two terrific defensive plays against the Hawks’ two biggest offensive threats on Tuesday.
Early in the second quarter, Towns blocked a CJ McCollum step-back 3-pointer. And less than two minutes later, he smothered a Jalen Johnson drive …
This season was just the second time in the last 30 years that the Knicks ranked in the top 10 on both ends of the floor. And their success on both ends has carried over into the playoffs thus far.
3. Towns plays big
Towns finished with only 16 points in Game 5, but 14 of those came in the first half, when the Knicks made it clear that they were the better team on Tuesday.
Jonathan Kuminga came off the Hawks bench and tried to guard the Knicks’ starting center, but he had no chance. Towns drained a 3-pointer over Kuminga and then backed him down before hitting him with a spin move that put the Knicks up five …
A few possessions later, Towns scored against Kuminga in the post again. The Hawks tried double-teaming him in the second half, but that just resulted in the Knicks getting great shots elsewhere on the floor.
Through five games, Towns is averaging 20 points, his third highest mark in the 10 playoff series he’s played in. He’s done it efficiently, with a true shooting percentage of 73.9%, the second best mark among the 29 players who’ve averaged at least 20 points in these playoffs. And he’s one of only three players – Nikola Jokić and Jayson Tatum are the others – averaging at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists.
4. Shooters matter
If you want to play at this time of year, it really helps if you can shoot, because non-shooters will be ignored on the perimeter, compromising your team’s spacing.
Dyson Daniels was never a very good shooter (32.7% from 3-point range over his first three seasons) but he really struggled with his jumper this season, shooting just 19% from beyond the arc. Still, the Hawks’ starting lineup works because center Onyeka Okongwu was a much improved shooter from the outside.
Teaming Daniels with a non-shooting center doesn’t work so well, as we saw late in the first quarter on Tuesday. McCollum was double-teamed and Daniels drew help when he got the ball in the paint. But when he passed the ball to the wide-open shooter, that wide-open shooter was Tony Bradley …
The Hawks’ advantage was lost and they turned the ball over.
Two possessions later, the Knicks weren’t afraid to run another double-team at McCollum because Daniels and Bradley were still on the floor together. The Hawks then ran a double at Brunson, and Jordan Clarkson got a short, uncontested floater in the paint.
Late in the second quarter, Daniels again got the ball in the paint after McCollum was doubled. This time, Okongwu was on the floor instead of Bradley, and he drained a corner 3 …
With the Hawks missing Jock Landale (their normal back-up center who can shoot), Bradley has been needed to match up with the Knicks’ size. But it’s very difficult to put him on the floor alongside another non-shooter.
The Hawks may try to avoid that when they hope to keep their season alive in Game 6 on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN).
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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.
