{"id":715209,"date":"2026-04-21T14:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T14:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715209\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T14:19:08","slug":"the-knicks-always-had-fatal-flaws-and-the-hawks-just-exposed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715209\/","title":{"rendered":"The Knicks always had fatal flaws \u2014 and the Hawks just exposed them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps if Mike Brown opted not to call a controversial timeout<\/a> with 2:43 left in the fourth quarter of the Knicks\u2019 Game 2 loss to the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>, the Knicks may have, indeed, went on to take a 2-0 series lead instead. Because OG Anunoby was open in the corner, and Jalen Brunson made a strong drive to the paint creating a passing lane to a knockdown shooter.<\/p>\n

The world will never know. Brown called the timeout, the whistle cutting through a tense Madison Square Garden already bracing for a 14-point lead slipping away. And the way things were going, Brunson was set to call his own number yet again in an effort to prevent an epic playoff collapse.<\/p>\n

He finished with 29 points on 10-of-26 shooting. Over the final 7:53, he shot three-of-eight and had the ball stolen on the Knicks\u2019 second-to-last possession. No other Knick took more than three shots in the fourth. Karl-Anthony Towns, who went six-of-seven in the third quarter alone, took just two shots and didn\u2019t score in the fourth.<\/p>\n

And the Knicks cited a \u201cstagnant\u201d offense down the stretch \u2014 the standstill nature of the scoring flow the chief reason Brown called the timeout many say iced his own All-Star point guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [our offensive flow] could have been better,\u201d said Mikal Bridges. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely got to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree. It was a little bit slow,\u201d added Anunoby. \u201cNot a lot of ball movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe that would have changed on this possession had Brown not uncharacteristically halted play as Brunson made his move to the paint. Anunoby was available in the corner for a play his point guard has made time and time again this season.<\/p>\n

But not on this night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a couple of possessions that weren\u2019t fluid, and so I wanted to make sure that we had something that we wanted to get to or to set something up offensively,\u201d Brown explained as his reasoning for the timeout. \u201cBecause we had whiffed on the last couple of possessions. It just didn\u2019t look right or didn\u2019t feel right.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Brown wants pace. He\u2019s signaling it from the sideline, waving his players forward to attack an unset Hawks defense.<\/p>\n

Brunson, instead, is methodical \u2014 deliberate \u2014 working against Dyson Daniels\u2019 pressure before even crossing half court.<\/p>\n

Atlanta leaned all the way in: traps, blitzes, doubles near mid-court. The goal was to get the ball out of Brunson\u2019s hands and see what happens next.<\/p>\n

What happened next decided the game. It\u2019s been a season-long question under Brown: What do the Knicks look like when Brunson isn\u2019t the one creating offense? Game 2 was the clearest version yet \u2014 and the ugliest.<\/p>\n

The Knicks unraveled possession by possession: Bridges rimmed out two threes on the same trip, Anunoby got stripped on a drive to the rim, Towns left a late-clock three short, and Bridges missed the game-winner at the buzzer.<\/p>\n

Even their best non-Brunson possession \u2014 a Hart-to-Anunoby lob \u2014 ended with two missed free throws. Moments later, C.J. McCollum isolated Brunson and put the Hawks up three, a matchup he said he found advantageous for obvious reasons (\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d he responded after the game).<\/p>\n

\u201cDown the stretch we got some pretty good looks\u2026 we just didn\u2019t convert,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThey hit their shots. We missed ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another layer Brown won\u2019t fully concede \u2014 but Thibodeau understood: The Knicks struggle when Brunson and Towns sit together.<\/p>\n

New York led by 11 in the first quarter. Brown sat both stars early in the second. The Hawks took the lead minutes later.<\/p>\n

It happened again in the fourth. Up 14, both stars went to the bench. By the time they returned, the lead was nine \u2014 and shrinking. The lineup Brown turned to \u2014 Miles McBride, Mitchell Robinson, Jordan Clarkson, Landry Shamet and Anunoby \u2014 had barely played together all season. It\u2019s been effective in small samples, but Game 2 exposed the risk.<\/p>\n

Brown didn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t think so. We\u2019ve played that lineup quite a bit since the end of the season, and that lineup\u2019s been pretty good,\u201d he said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t good tonight and we turned the ball over a few too many times during that period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thibodeau rarely let both stars sit at once. Last postseason, Brunson and Towns shared just 35 total minutes on the bench together \u2014 and those minutes were a disaster.<\/p>\n

Through two playoff games this year, that number is already climbing. Towns didn\u2019t put the loss on those stretches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time when we were off the court wasn\u2019t where we lost,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was the time we were on the court at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Even when Brunson had the ball, things weren\u2019t right. He\u2019s not the same late-game force he was last season.<\/p>\n

By the NBA\u2019s definition, clutch time is the final five minutes of a game within five points. Last season, Brunson led the league with 5.6 clutch points on 51.5% shooting.<\/p>\n

This year: 3.6 points on 49%. The difference is subtle, but real. Brown has pushed Brunson to trust his teammates more. The tradeoff has been rhythm \u2014 knowing when to attack and when to defer.<\/p>\n

Brunson hit a tying three with 1:21 left. Another to cut it to one with nine seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

But too often, he dribbled deep into the clock before initiating anything \u2014 or called his own number immediately advancing the ball into the frontcourt. He was doing it again when Brown called timeout, driving into the lane as Anunoby waited, open, in the corner, flopping his arms under the ostensible realization the ball was not going to find him.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The late-game offense was] maybe a little stagnant. Obviously I can control what I can control,\u201d he said after the game. \u201cAnd so poor decision-making on my part in some possessions\u2026 We just got to play better with the lead. That\u2019s twice in the fourth quarter now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the most glaring issue of all: Towns isn\u2019t touching the ball enough. It\u2019s a layered issue that reared its head under pressure on Monday.<\/p>\n

With 3:12 left, the Knicks clung to a one-point lead. Somehow, 6-7 Jonathan Kuminga kept the 7-foot Towns from establishing post-up position, pushing him out of the paint and into the corner.<\/p>\n

Towns raised his hands \u2014 calling for the ball \u2014 then dropped them in frustration.<\/p>\n

After scoring 14 in the third, he didn\u2019t score in the fourth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity just didn\u2019t come around to shoot it,\u201d Towns said at his locker after the game. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t find me. The opportunity wasn\u2019t available for me in the fourth, and that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not fine: The Hawks are thin at center. This is the matchup the Knicks are supposed to dominate. Instead, Towns has taken 13 and 12 shots in the first two games of the series.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Knicks\u2019 most glaring flaw \u2014 and the easiest explanation if this series turns. They don\u2019t consistently lean into their biggest advantage and haven\u2019t prioritized him as a top scoring option consistently throughout the season. Plus Towns, in certain matchups, is neither forceful asserting himself demanding the ball nor establishing advantageous position against smaller opponents.<\/p>\n

\u201cKAT\u2019s a great player, so he\u2019s just got to impose his will on the game,\u201d Brown said after the loss. \u201cI don\u2019t need to tell him every game he\u2019s got to be aggressive. He knows we need him to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe Towns knows that. Maybe his teammates do, too. But knowing and doing are two different things \u2014 and right now, the Knicks are stuck in between. In-between scoring and play-making, scoring and trusting one another. In between a timeout and letting things play out on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got to make sure [KAT is] involved \u2014 find him on mismatches, put him into actions, make sure we use his skill and his gravity to our advantage,\u201d said Hart, seated next to Brunson at the post-game podium, in the chair Towns occupied one game prior. \u201cAnd that\u2019s something that we\u2019ll look at on film and be better with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps if Mike Brown opted not to call a controversial timeout with 2:43 left in the fourth quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,2024,677,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-715209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-game-2","10":"tag-hawks","11":"tag-knicks","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-knicks","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116443136839209109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715209","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=715209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}