For all the strengths the Knicks possess \u2014 and, as a team that\u2019s won 50-plus games each of the past three seasons, there are plenty \u2014 across their roster, their defining one also doubled as their most deadly.<\/p>\n
They held the best fourth-quarter net rating in the NBA this season. They had Captain Clutch, a nickname Jalen Brunson ensured was a fitting one when he won the league\u2019s Clutch Player of the Year award last season.<\/p>\n
If there were ever a close game in the playoffs, whether against the Hawks in the first round or another team after that, the Knicks had their go-to player, but more than that, they had evolved into a team that could deliver down the stretch of games when it mattered. And it always mattered in the postseason.<\/p>\n
But for one stunning Monday evening at the Garden, the Hawks beat the Knicks at their own game, and now it\u2019s a series<\/a> following the Knicks\u2019 107-106 Game 2 loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all the strengths the Knicks possess \u2014 and, as a team that\u2019s won 50-plus games each of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,4517,677,288,6,56381,191,3823,66,196],"class_list":{"0":"post-715122","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-beyond-the-back-page","13":"tag-hawks","14":"tag-jalen-brunson","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-playoffs-2026","17":"tag-new-york-knicks","18":"tag-post-sports-newsletters","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-sports-plus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116442531546528332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715122","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=715122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}