Knicks' Mike Brown on Hawks spurring offensive change: 'They helped us get better'

It's not uncommon for winning coaches and players to credit the team they just defeated in the playoffs, and that's what the Knicks did after their Game 6 rout of the Hawks.

However, Knicks coach Mike Brown gave extra credit, if you will, to the Hawks and coach Quin Snyder on how they pushed New York in the series.

"Recognize the Atlanta Hawks. It was a good series," Brown said after the win. "Quin and his staff, I said this before. They helped us get better. And I think they would say the same about us. Quin pushed a lot of right buttons, their team too. It made us have to keep figuring it out how to make our guys better. Appreciate that."

While it may seem odd after three consecutive double-digit victories over the Hawks -- including a historic win on Thursday -- but it wasn't long ago that Atlanta held a 2-1 series lead over the Knicks and things were looking dire. The offense, in particular, looked stagnant as Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and the others simply could not execute possessions consistently.

That was until Game 4.

Following back-to-back one-point losses, especially in Game 3, where the Knicks' fourth-quarter comeback fell short after the offense fumbled the possession and could not get a clean shot off as the clock expired, Brown and his staff went back to the drawing board and as the Knicks head coach explains, they had to change the offense.

"We changed the way we played offensively and defensively about halfway through the season and we changed again after Game 3," Brown said. " [The Hawks] forced us to put our thinking caps on and forced us to play different. Find ways to make the game easier while putting them in their strengths, while trying not to hinder them. We changed what we done offensively, but again that’s because we were pushed to do it. We feel pretty good about what we fell into."