{"id":713718,"date":"2026-04-19T06:36:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713718\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:36:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:36:28","slug":"heroes-zeros-from-knicks-game-1-win-over-hawks-jalen-brunson-gets-it-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713718\/","title":{"rendered":"Heroes, zeros from Knicks\u2019 Game 1 win over Hawks: Jalen Brunson gets it started"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:NY Post;\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"NY Post\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"194\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/46c6ce20-b635-11ee-babf-0468df94f866.png\"\/><\/a>Sun, April 19, 2026 at 1:21 AM UTC<img alt=\"An image collage containing 1 images, Image 1 shows Jalen Brunson, who scored 28 points, reacts during his 19-point first quarter in the Knicks' 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on April 18, 2026 at Madison Square Garden\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"828\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/06eb63f3e775c85b1f911f9c5f9ce845.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>An image collage containing 1 images, Image 1 shows Jalen Brunson, who scored 28 points, reacts during his 19-point first quarter in the Knicks&#8217; 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on April 18, 2026 at Madison Square Garden<\/p>\n<p>Heroes and zeros from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/news\/knicks-roll-past-hawks-statement-005449686.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Knicks\u2019 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">Knicks\u2019 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks<\/a> on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden: \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hero<\/p>\n<p>Jalen Brunson set the tone, scoring 19 first-quarter points en route to a somewhat comfortable Game 1 victory. Brunson finished with 28 points along with seven assists.<\/p>\n<p>Hawks coach Quin Snyder had to be having flashbacks to the 2022 playoffs, when he was the Jazz coach and Brunson torched Utah as a member of the Mavericks.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Jalen Brunson, who scored 28 points, reacts during his 19-point first quarter in the Knicks\u2019 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on April 18, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"658\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/c58e642c9eb7b8b7b5412d8e5ffb4b40.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jalen Brunson, who scored 28 points, reacts during his 19-point first quarter in the Knicks\u2019 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on April 18, 2026 at Madison Square Garden. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>Zero<\/p>\n<p>Nickeil Alexander-Walker had the best season of his seven-year NBA career, but he struggled in Game 1.<\/p>\n<p>He managed 17 points, but needed 16 shots and wasn\u2019t nearly as impactful a defender as he can be.<\/p>\n<p>Unsung hero<\/p>\n<p>Karl-Anthony Towns was terrific in the regular season against the Hawks, and that continued in Game 1.<\/p>\n<p>Towns was efficiency and productive, finishing with 25 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three blocks in 33 solid minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Key stat<\/p>\n<p>47 \u2013 Hawks second-half points. The Knicks shut them down when it mattered, after allowing 55 in the first 24 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sun, April 19, 2026 at 1:21 AM UTC An image collage containing 1 images, Image 1 shows Jalen&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,14200,677,288,563,304,6,379,2986,5291],"class_list":{"0":"post-713718","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-charles-wenzelberg","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-jalen-brunson","15":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","16":"tag-knicks","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","19":"tag-quin-snyder","20":"tag-the-hawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116429992721643690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713718","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=713718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}