The Knicks rallied to tie their playoff series against the Hawks, thanks in part to Karl-Anthony Towns' pivotal role in their offense. The team's performance shifted dramatically, showcasing their resilience in a crucial moment.
ATLANTA — With just over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter of Game 4 between the Knicks and Hawks on Saturday, the Jumbotron read “get loud,” a signal for the home crowd to cheer on a team that had fallen behind more than 20 points on the night.
The operators manning the screens couldn’t have predicted what would happen next: In an all-out Knicks fan invasion in hostile territory on the road, “Let’s go, Knicks!” chants rained down from the stands.
Those cheers — for the opposing team in Atlanta — grew even louder 30 seconds later, when Karl-Anthony Towns briefly checked out of the game, met by a standing ovation from Knicks fans scattered across the arena.
Those fans got an up-close and personal view of what it’s like for a series to shift drastically — from a team on the ropes to a team suddenly seizing full control of a playoff series, even if the victory only tied it at two games apiece.
With his team on the brink of a 1-3 deficit only 4.4% of teams in NBA history have ever overcome, Knicks head coach Mike Brown was always going to make an adjustment. The only question was which lever Brown would pull to save his team’s season in the first round of the playoffs.
Brown could have made a change to the starting lineup, as some expected after a blunder of a Mikal Bridges performance (zero points, four turnovers) in the Knicks’ Game 3 loss at State Farm Arena on Thursday.
Instead, he pressed the button fans and media members alike have been clamoring for since his arrival as Tom Thibodeau’s replacement last July. Brown put the ball in Towns’ hands and let his talented 7-foot big man play quarterback at the top of the 3-point line.
And now, you can call him KAT Mahomes: Towns recorded his first-ever playoff triple-double.
Twenty points. Ten rebounds. Ten assists. And an avalanche of a 114-98 victory over the Hawks to even the series at 2-2 as it shifts back to Madison Square Garden for Game 5 on Tuesday.
The series feels far from even after the Knicks took the Hawks to the woodshed on Saturday. Because the Knicks reminded the Hawks who’s the No. 3 seed and who’s the No. 6. Who’s the team with two All-Stars and who’s the team with a first-timer this year. And who’s the team with championship expectations versus the team just happy to be out of the Play-In Tournament for the first time since its inception.
Karl-Anthony Towns played a crucial role in the Knicks' offense, helping them rally and tie the playoff series against the Hawks.
The Knicks were trailing by more than 20 points before making a comeback to tie the series at two games apiece.
Coach Mike Brown made strategic adjustments to the offense, including running plays through Karl-Anthony Towns to save the team's season.
Only 4.4% of teams in NBA history have successfully overcome a 1-3 deficit in the playoffs.
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With their backs against the wall, the Knicks showed the Hawks there are levels to playoff basketball. And the Hawks, on Saturday night, were several levels out of place. Maybe if the Knicks played like this from the beginning, this series could have been over in five games.
The natural question, of course, is why — as in why did it take a season-jeopardizing pair of playoff losses for Brown and the Knicks to realize Towns is the kind of talent capable of turning a game on his own, provided his teammates and coaching staff entrust him with the responsibility to do so?
Far too often this season, the six-time All-Star who regards himself as the best shooting big man in NBA history has become an afterthought in a Knicks offense that’s run largely through Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart. Hopefully his teammates and coaches realize the errors in their ways. Hopefully now, they realize good things happen when Towns has the ball.
There’s a caveat, of course, because Towns has oftentimes been careless with his passing, leading teammates too far or throwing ill-advised darts that either get picked off or end up out of bounds. On Saturday, he had five-to-one assist-to-turnover ratio: Mahomes in the pocket with all the time in the world to deliver a touchdown strike.
OG Anunoby, the beneficiary of several Towns darts, finished with a team-high 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the field. Brunson finished with 19 points on 18 shot attempts and turned the ball over six times to just three assists on the night. Hart lit a fire beneath his team with his defense played against Jalen Johnson and C.J. McCollum. Johnson and McCollum combined for 31 points on 12-of-27 shooting from the field after McCollum scored 32 points on his own in Game 2. And the Knicks, who’d been turned over and scored on in transition regularly throughout the series, pulled an UNO reverse card, scoring 21 points off 19 Hawks turnovers on the night.
And now, one question remains: Can the Knicks do it again? Can they commit to the style of play that served them so well, that created a ridiculous margin of victory that stole all of Atlanta’s momentum with the series shifting back to The Garden on Tuesday?
If they do, this series could be over in six. If not, it could go seven, and anything can happen in a Game 7.