{"id":702643,"date":"2026-04-07T04:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T04:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702643\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T04:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T04:56:16","slug":"the-lesson-nickeil-alexander-walker-learned-from-ny-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702643\/","title":{"rendered":"The lesson Nickeil Alexander-Walker learned from NY loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA \u2013 The Monday evening matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks had all the feelings<\/a> of a playoff game. The roaring crowd, the multiple lead changes, and the big shots down the stretch. The Hawks fell 108-105<\/a>, but there was a lot they could take away from a game like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest takeaway is that this is a lesson, and it\u2019s good for us to be battle-tested heading into the postseason,\u201d Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a> said after the game. \u201cThat\u2019s a good team, and now we know how much better we can be, and we know their strengths, they know ours, and it\u2019s how do we make the adjustments if we should play them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a chance that the Hawks will see the Knicks<\/a> in the playoffs, depending on what happens throughout the final week of the regular season, and this was a good barometer to see how they stack up.<\/p>\n

The Hawks had a five-point lead with three minutes remaining in the game. A shot clock violation and a CJ McCollum turned that lead into a two-point deficit, and from there, the Knicks made more plays in the end to walk away with the victory. But for a team that doesn’t have any playoff experience together, it felt like they had been in these situations before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s playoff basketball now, and teams are starting to get ready for the playoffs,\u201d Jalen Johnson said. \u201cSo our execution in the last five minutes, if we continue to hone in on that and continue to execute, we put ourselves in a better position. But we did a lot of good things tonight that we can take with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander-Walker has been in a lot of high-intensity games the past two seasons when he was with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and he thinks the Hawks responded well to the playoff-like atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just really proud for whatever the experience is on the team, how everybody handled it, and their focus and approach was trying to win the game,\u201d Alexander-Walker said. \u201cYeah, we didn\u2019t win, but there\u2019s a lesson through it. And if we just use that lesson, then when it does matter, that\u2019ll help us win games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks have pretty much treated this second half of the season like the playoffs, so they know what to do in these remaining games. There is still a lot of work to be done, and they need a few more wins to clinch a top-six seed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody knows the sense of urgency, not just this last week, but since post All-Star break,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cEvery game has a sense of urgency, coming out and trying to be aggressive, and we understand the position, standimgs and all that, and understand that every game matters right now. We obviously have to flush this one, but take away some things and apply them to Cleveland.\u201d<\/p>\n

ATLANTA \u2013 The Monday evening matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks had all the feelings of a playoff game. The roaring crowd, the multiple lead changes, and the big shots down the stretch. The Hawks fell 108-105, but there was a lot they could take away from a game like this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2013 The Monday evening matchup between the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks had all the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,677,6,191,379,2144],"class_list":{"0":"post-702643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-hawks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-hawks","10":"tag-atlantahawks","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-hawks","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","16":"tag-reporting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116361654648014066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}