{"id":716996,"date":"2026-04-24T06:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716996\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T06:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:12:19","slug":"a-first-round-nba-playoffs-collapse-could-signal-the-end-of-this-knicks-core","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/716996\/","title":{"rendered":"A First-Round NBA Playoffs Collapse Could Signal the End of This Knicks Core"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a floor seat in Atlanta, Knicks owner James Dolan watched a nightmare unfold. Three months ago Dolan boldly proclaimed his team should\u2014not would, should\u2014win a championship, raising the bar for one of last season\u2019s conference finalists even higher. On Thursday, Dolan was one of 18,452 inside State Farm Arena watching the Hawks squeeze out a 109\u2013108<\/a> Game 3 win\u2014and push New York closer to a catastrophic NBA playoffs first-round elimination.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we didn\u2019t play our best basketball,\u201d said Knicks coach Mike Brown.<\/p>\n

Said Jalen Brunson, \u201cMissed opportunity, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

This shouldn\u2019t be happening. The Knicks have Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. They are getting beat by CJ McCollum and Jonathan Kuminga<\/a>. The third-seeded Knicks have a core that\u2019s been together for several years. The sixth-seed Hawks traded away their superstar<\/a> (Trae Young) at midseason and needed a second-half surge to avoid the play-in. New York is built to win now. Atlanta is trying to win \u2026 eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it is happening. Atlanta is running New York off the three-point line. It is sprinting out in transition. It is matching a bigger Knicks team on the glass. McCollum has turned into a Young-level villain<\/a>. Kuminga (sorry, Warriors) is living up to his potential. The Hawks are playing like a team that wants to win this series. The Knicks look like one that feels entitled to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAtlanta, they\u2019re trying to get up in us,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to speed us up. They\u2019re playing physical. And when you face that type of defense, you can\u2019t play on your heels. You can\u2019t be passive at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s keep it a buck here, folks: Brown has been terrible. Bad substitutions, bad play-calling, bad everything. Too often he has left Brunson alone to defend McCollum. Mikal Bridges has regressed to the point of being unplayable. Brown\u2019s out-of-timeout plays have been uninspiring. Down eight points at the start of the fourth quarter, Brown went without Brunson or Towns on the floor. When they checked back in 2 \u00bd minutes later, the Knicks were down 10.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s final possession was brutal. Down a point with 12.5 seconds left, the Knicks tried to inbound the ball to Brunson. Couldn\u2019t do it. Josh Hart got his hands on it, eventually got it to Brunson who was bottled up on the baseline and threw it away. Brown, hilariously, suggested after the game that the play went as designed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to \u2026 clear that right side of the floor for him because that\u2019s what he\u2019s comfortable doing and tell him to go win it,\u201d said Brown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Said Brunson, \u201cI\u2019ve made a lot of plays going right. Clearly not this time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brown didn\u2019t sound any alarms after the game. Seven-game series, he told his team in the locker room. Long way to go. Brown reminded reporters that Oklahoma City trailed 2\u20131 in a series last year. \u201cAnd they ended up winning it,\u201d Brown said. The Knicks have played poorly the last two games. And they have lost by only a combined two points.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should sting because we gave ourselves a chance knowing that we didn\u2019t play our best basketball,\u201d said Brown. \u201cSo it should sting, but we need to feel it and get ready to be locked in for the next game, which we will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see. Game 3 winners of 1\u20131 series have gone on to win 74% of them. The Knicks have played 20 seven-game series in their history when they have trailed 2\u20131 after Game 3. They have lost 17 of them. Brown is right\u2014New York has played badly. But there\u2019s no certainty that they will play better. There\u2019s no reviving Bridges, who went scoreless in 21 minutes. Hart played 40 minutes and went 1 of 9. Mitchell Robinson logged just 11 minutes, with Brown deeming a Robinson-Towns pairing unplayable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Knicks<\/p>\n

Knicks head coach Mike Brown\u2019s bad play-calling this series could send New York to an early postseason exit. | Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need something from everybody,\u201d said Brown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t, look out. Billy Donovan is a free agent<\/a>. Don\u2019t think that went unnoticed. Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to be traded this offseason<\/a>. New York has made a run at Antetokounmpo before. Expect the Knicks to do it again. This iteration of the Knicks, a team that cracked 50 wins for the last three seasons, could be finished.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough. We\u2019ve got to keep our head up,\u201d said Towns. \u201cIt\u2019s O.K. to be disappointed, that means we care. Got to get the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future of the team depends on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More NBA From Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n

Listen to SI\u2019s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From a floor seat in Atlanta, Knicks owner James Dolan watched a nightmare unfold. Three months ago Dolan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,191,3810,3806],"class_list":{"0":"post-716996","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-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-knicks","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkknicks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116458209824269316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716996","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=716996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}