CJ McCollum walks down Knicks, outduels Jalen Brunson in brutal Game 2 loss

Brunson answered with a huge 3 to tie the game at 103 with 1:21 left. McCollum answered with a 14-footer. Then came the sequence that broke the Knicks for good: Brunson got stripped by Alexander-Walker, Johnson ran out for a transition slam, and Atlanta was suddenly up four. Brunson hit another 3 with 8.5 seconds left, McCollum missed both free throws on the next possession, and Bridges’ pull-up at the horn came up short.

That finish hurt more because the Knicks had spent so much of the night finding different ways to win than they did in Game 1.

Two nights earlier, Brunson detonated early and carried the opener from the front. This time the Knicks got their early spark by committee. Josh Hart set the tone on the game’s first possession by chesting up Johnson and forcing a fumble out of bounds. A few trips later, Hart came off a Towns dribble handoff, beat Dyson Daniels to the rim for a two-handed slam, then followed it with a fadeaway over Onyeka Okongwu. Bridges had eight points in the opening quarter. Robinson changed the game with lob dunk after lob dunk after Mouhamed Gueye exited early with a hip injury following a missed transition dunk. All five starters combined for 26 of the Knicks’ 32 first-quarter points, and the Knicks held Atlanta to 37.5% shooting in the period for a 32-23 lead.

That was one of the biggest differences from Game 1. Brunson opened 2-for-6, and the Knicks still had juice because Hart, Bridges and Robinson supplied it for him.

They just couldn’t keep the game on that track.

Mike Brown had warned beforehand that Atlanta would come back pushing harder in transition, launching more 3s and crashing the glass from everywhere. That showed up in the second quarter, when the Knicks’ second unit kept coughing the ball up and let the Hawks run themselves back into the game. Landry Shamet’s minutes were rough. A Deuce McBride turnover led to a Jonathan Kuminga dunk that put Atlanta ahead 36-35 with 8:13 left in the half and forced Brown to get back to the starters who had built the lead in the first place.

Even with all that, the Knicks still went into the break up 61-54 thanks to Bridges’ off-balance step-through 10-footer at the buzzer. That came despite Towns having just four points and two rebounds at halftime, the Knicks going 5-for-17 from deep and missing seven free throws. McCollum already had 18 points by then, which should have been warning enough.

Then the Knicks did what good teams are supposed to do. They came out of halftime and looked ready to bury it.

Game 2 started mirroring Game 1 there, with Towns finally finding his footing after the break. He scored 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting in the third quarter. The Knicks shot 60% in the period. The Hawks missed all nine of their 3-point attempts in the quarter. The lead grew to 91-79 entering the fourth, and for a while it looked like the Knicks had taken Brown’s pregame warnings, cleaned up enough of the mistakes and found the formula to put the game away.

They just never finished the job.

And that’s what will stay with them. The Knicks got enough from Hart early, enough from Bridges, a huge bench jolt from Robinson, the Towns quarter they needed and another late scoring push from Brunson.

McCollum simply kept coming, and when the game reached its hardest possessions, he won them.