Bill Yin breaks down his prediction and pick for tonight’s NBA playoff game between the Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks.
The Atlanta Hawks will host the New York Knicks for Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs tonight at 7 PM EST. The series is currently tied 1-1 heading to Atlanta. The Hawks have listed Jock Landale as Out, while the Knicks are fully healthy.
The Knicks are 1.5-point favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook with the total for this game set at 216.5 points.
Hawks vs. Knicks prediction, preview
New York captured the series opener by playing the cleaner game. In Game 1, the Knicks won 113-102 behind 28 from Jalen Brunson, 25 from Karl-Anthony Towns, and 18 from OG Anunoby. The free throw disparity mattered, with the Knicks going 25/30 while the Hawks went 12/19. Mike Brown also had to navigate some uglier playoff stuff early. Atlanta relentlessly hacked Mitchell Robinson in the second half, fouling Mitchell Robinson twice on purpose to capitalize on Robinson’s atrocious free throw percentage, and it paid off: Robinson went 1/4 on those trips. But Brown countered by using those possessions to get New York into the bonus and by not letting the tactic scare him off Robinson entirely. The game also got chippy later. CJ McCollum got T’d up after a hostile-act review for kicking Brunson in the groin area on a jumper. The bigger takeaway, though, was that New York’s offense looked more coherent in Game 1 than it did in Game 2. In the loss Monday, the Knicks scored just 15 points in the fourth quarter, shot a woeful 5/22 in that period, and coughed up a 12-point fourth-quarter lead. Through two games, Brunson has shot 39.6% from the field, and Atlanta’s pressure from Dyson Daniels and Nickeil Alexander-Walker has helped force the Knicks back toward isolation ball instead of the cleaner Brunson-Towns interplay they want. And they’ll look to keep that going tonight, as that formula clearly worked for them in Game 2. If I’m Atlanta, I’m loving life when sticking Dyson Daniels on Brunson and letting those iso possessions play out. Brunson’s been hoisting up shots, getting to his 28.5 PPG in two games through sheer volume, on 22 and 26 shots apiece.
Atlanta should feel good because its Game 2 adjustment looked more actionable than anything New York has shown yet. Quin Snyder’s team didn’t just get lucky. The Hawks won Game 2 by getting downhill harder and by targeting New York’s soft spots later in the game. CJ McCollum scored 32, including the go-ahead bucket with 33.5 seconds left, and Jonathan Kuminga’s 19 points off the bench gave Atlanta a nice punch. Atlanta closed on a 15-6 run, shot 72.2% in the fourth quarter, and turned New York’s defense inside out badly enough that the Knicks gave up 42 points in the paint in the second half alone, their worst such half of the entire season. In Game 3, if the Hawks can keep forcing Towns and Brunson into interior rotations, they’ll do well, as the Knicks have not yet shown they can consistently hold up there. We didn’t see the Hawks hacking Robinson in Game 2, but maybe they should have; Robinson still gave New York 13 points and 7 rebounds in only 18 minutes. The Atlanta game plan looks straightforward now: keep making Brunson work, keep attacking him in space, and keep trusting McCollum plus Kuminga to give the offense enough late-game shotmaking. One notable takeaway from these first two games, as well, is that Jalen Johnson only put up three assists in each of these two games.
Hawks vs. Knicks pick, best Bet
Best Bet: Atlanta Hawks +1.5 (-110)
I’m liking the Hawks’ Game 2 adjustments and they’re also heading back to their home court after stealing a win in Madison Square Garden. I’m liking even more the fact that they have Dyson Daniels on tap, an elite, lengthy defender who’s capable of making Brunson’s life miserable for all 94 feet. The Hawks finished the last 15 games of their regular season with 118.2 OFFRTG and 112.4 DEFRTG, which over the course of the season, would be ranked seventh in the NBA on both ends. They looked like an elite team heading into the postseason and Snyder’s got them in a good spot to continue rolling with a Game 3 win.