The Hawks Smothered The Knicks To Pick Up A Comfortable Game 3 Win

The first two games of the Atlanta Hawks’ series with the New York Knicks have been defined by cagey, hotly-contested basketball, with the Hawks coming back to narrowly win Game 1 at Madison Square Garden and the Knicks rallying to defend their home court in Game 2. On Friday night, the series shifted to Atlanta, and the Hawks very much managed to rise to the occasion.

While the game’s first quarter was tight, Atlanta blew the doors open in the second and managed to keep New York at arm’s length for the remainder of the game from that point on. By the time the final horn blew, the Hawks picked up a 105-94 win to put the 5-seed in the Eastern Conference up on the 4-seed, two games to one.

Two things defined this game, with the first being Atlanta’s ability to get whatever it wanted on offense from a variety of players. As a team, the Hawks shot 42-for-81 (51.9 percent) from the field and 16-for-27 (59.3 percent) from three. Trae Young, as he oftentimes does, led the way with 21 points and 14 assists, but every member of Atlanta’s starting five scored in double-digits, as did a pair of players (Danilo Gallinari and Kevin Huerter) off the bench.

Young didn’t have his most efficient game by any stretch, going 8-for-19 from the field and 2-for-6 from three, but his sheer gravity and ability to make plays led to him setting up his teammates with ease. He didn’t need to have a gigantic scoring night — even though he was the team’s top scorer — because Young was able to pick apart the vaunted Knicks’ defense with his passing.

Also defining this game was how horrific the Knicks were offensively. Atlanta’s defense deserves credit, as it once again frustrated Julius Randle (14 points on 2-for-15 shooting and an 0-for-8 mark on two-point attempts). Beyond him, though, New York’s offense could not do anything outside of giving the ball to Derrick Rose and getting out of the way.

Rose, to his credit, was quite good, scoring 30 points on 13-for-21 shooting while knocking down three of his five triples.

But otherwise, the Knicks’ offense was just flat-out bad. The team scored on 29 of its 81 field goal attempts and nine of its 30 threes, good for percentages of 35.8 percent and 30 percent, respectively. If not for some especially good free throw shooting from Randle (8-for-8) and Nerlens Noel (10-for-12), the final score could have been uglier. Credit goes to the Hawks, of course, which competed on defense and made the Knicks work for seemingly everything.

The series is hardly over, of course, but New York will need to figure out how to get its offense going in order to keep the Hawks from wrapping things up quickly. But for now, both teams will get a day off before returning to the floor on Sunday. The game tips at 1 p.m. EST on ABC.