{"id":713798,"date":"2026-04-19T09:03:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713798\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T09:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T09:03:54","slug":"knicks-defense-locked-in-to-shut-down-hawks-in-performance-they-can-only-hope-to-repeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/713798\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks\u2019 defense locked in to shut down Hawks in performance they can only hope to repeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows Karl-Anthony Towns defends CJ McCollum during an NBA playoff game, Image 2 shows Atlanta Hawks player Jalen Johnson shooting a basketball over New York Knicks player Landry Shamet<\/p>\n

It came easy to the Hawks for 24 minutes.<\/p>\n

Then, the Knicks turned their water off.<\/p>\n

It was the key to this 113-102 victory<\/a>, the Knicks ramping up their defensive intensity and shutting down Atlanta after halftime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t stop on plays,\u201d Miles McBride said. \u201cI feel like they were getting out and they were winning the space battle, getting open and getting to their spots. I feel like in the second half we really cut that off. We made catches difficult, and we got to loose balls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jalen<\/p>\n

Jalen Johnson shoots over Landry Shamet during the third quarter of the Knicks\u2019 113-102 Game 1 win over the Hawks on April 18, 2026 at the Garden. Jason Szenes \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

The Hawks managed just 47 points over the final 24 minutes, and a good chunk of that came after the game had been well decided in the final minutes of the final stanza.<\/p>\n

The Hawks were held to 19 points in the third quarter as the Knicks took command.<\/p>\n

They were forced into difficult shots late in the shot clock, and Atlanta went cold from 3. After shooting 8-for-16 from distance in the first half, they went 6-for-21 the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir small-small pick-and-roll is a problem. And our guys did a pretty good job of defending that the right way in the second half,\u201d coach Mike Brown said. \u201cIt kinda got away from us early in the game, and they got some open looks from it, but our level of physicality without fouling was really good in the second half, as well as our communication with their small-small pick-and-roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks talked a lot after the win about needing to be the more physical team for the entirety of this series, and having to be better on the glass.<\/p>\n

\"Karl-Anthony<\/p>\n

Karl-Anthony Towns defends against CJ McCollum during the third quarter of the Knicks\u2019 Game 1 win over the Hawks. Jason Szenes \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

They outrebounded the Hawks by five but were only plus-two in the paint (44-42).<\/p>\n

Nickeil Alexander-Walker was held to 17 points on 6-for-17 shooting. Jalen Johnson scored 23 points but shot 8-for-19. The Knicks turned them into inefficient scorers.<\/p>\n

The key is to consistently defend like they did in the second half and turn it into a habit.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single night,\u201d McBride, a team-best plus-12, said. \u201cIt\u2019s nonnegotiable; we have to bring it every single night and be locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

This performance was at least a good start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 2 images, Image 1 shows Karl-Anthony Towns defends CJ McCollum during an NBA playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[676,7,7046,677,2990,14219,563,304,4988,2715,6,1136,191,3810,3806,379,5291],"class_list":{"0":"post-713798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-cj-mccollum","11":"tag-hawks","12":"tag-jalen-johnson","13":"tag-jason-szenes","14":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","15":"tag-knicks","16":"tag-landry-shamet","17":"tag-miles-mcbride","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-new-york","20":"tag-new-york-knicks","21":"tag-newyork","22":"tag-newyorkknicks","23":"tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","24":"tag-the-hawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116430574948784543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713798","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=713798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}