Knicks deliver all-time dominant win over Hawks in Game 6, advance to second round of NBA playoffs

Anunoby scored 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting during that tone-setting first quarter, helping to fuel an early 14-0 run in which the Knicks pulled ahead for good.

The Knicks shot 18-of-26 in the first quarter — much to the delight of a rowdy, sizable contingent of New York fans that made its presence felt more and more as the game got out of hand.

And it didn’t stop there. The Knicks opened the second quarter on a 22-4 run, a surge in which Bridges found Mitchell Robinson for an emphatic one-handed alley-oop dunk; and in which a Brunson long-range lob resulted in a highlight-worthy Bridges jam.

When Anunoby completed a three-point play with 4:39 before halftime, the Knicks went up 72-22.

Frustration began to boil over from there. As Anunoby shot his free throw, Robinson and Daniels got tangled up while jockeying for position.

That escalated into a shoving match that spilled into the sideline, causing players from both teams to intervene. Robinson — who had stepped over Daniels during a testy exchange in Game 2 — were assessed offsetting technical fouls and were both ejected.

But it was an otherwise excellent night for the third-seeded Knicks, who made 28 of their first 40 shot attempts, assisted on 21 of them, and turned 14 first-half turnovers into 20 points.

The Knicks went up 101-40 with 8:21 left in the third. By the 2:45 mark of that quarter, both teams turned to the back ends of their benches for the remainder of the game.

It was a much-needed big performance for Bridges, who entered Thursday averaging just 7.2 points per game in the series, including a scoreless Game 3, and had sat down the stretch in two games.

After trading away Trae Young and Kristaps Porzingis midseason, upstart Atlanta entered the playoffs as one of the NBA’s hottest teams, winning 19 of its final 24 games to clinch the Eastern Conference’s No. 6 seed.

The resurgent Hawks carried that hot play into the playoffs, earning back-to-back one-point victories in Games 2 and 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.

But the Knicks — buoyed by unrelenting physicality, an experience advantage and an increased emphasis on Towns’ play-making — emerged as the superior team as the series wore on, winning the final three games in progressively more overwhelming fashion.

This is the fourth year in a row the Knicks have advanced to the second round of the playoffs, after last year’s trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, they have much loftier aspirations.

In January, Knicks owner James Dolan told WFAN in a rare interview, “We want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals.”

Consider step one complete.