It came easy to the Hawks for 24 minutes.
Then, the Knicks turned their water off.
It was the key to this 113-102 victory, the Knicks ramping up their defensive intensity and shutting down Atlanta after halftime.
“We just didn’t stop on plays,” Miles McBride said. “I feel like they were getting out and they were winning the space battle, getting open and getting to their spots. I feel like in the second half we really cut that off. We made catches difficult, and we got to loose balls.”
The Hawks managed just 47 points over the final 24 minutes, and a good chunk of that came after the game had been well decided in the final minutes of the final stanza.
The Hawks were held to 19 points in the third quarter as the Knicks took command.
They were forced into difficult shots late in the shot clock, and Atlanta went cold from 3. After shooting 8-for-16 from distance in the first half, they went 6-for-21 the rest of the way.
“Their small-small pick-and-roll is a problem. And our guys did a pretty good job of defending that the right way in the second half,” coach Mike Brown said. “It kinda got away from us early in the game, and they got some open looks from it, but our level of physicality without fouling was really good in the second half, as well as our communication with their small-small pick-and-roll.”
The Knicks talked a lot after the win about needing to be the more physical team for the entirety of this series, and having to be better on the glass.
They outrebounded the Hawks by five but were only plus-two in the paint (44-42).
Nickeil Alexander-Walker was held to 17 points on 6-for-17 shooting. Jalen Johnson scored 23 points but shot 8-for-19. The Knicks turned them into inefficient scorers.
The key is to consistently defend like they did in the second half and turn it into a habit.
“Every single night,” McBride, a team-best plus-12, said. “It’s nonnegotiable; we have to bring it every single night and be locked in.”
This performance was at least a good start.