Before that, Atlanta - which ranked second in the league this year with 24.2 free throw attempts per game, had attempted just three free throws (making two) over the first 41:17. Including those two free throws, nine of Young’s final 13 points came at the foul line. That opened the door for Young to draw a very questionable touch foul on Barrett and sink two foul shots with 28.6 seconds left before Rose tied the game for a final time on a floating jumper with 10.2 seconds remaining. While those two misses ultimately provided the final margin for the Hawks, it was an open baseline jumper that Burks missed with a chance to break a 103-103 tie with 35.5 seconds left that cost the Knicks a lot down the stretch. However, Burks missed the second of two free throws with 4:27 left, nearly a minute after Randle did the same.
Barrett finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds, it was reserve guards Alec Burks (playoff career-high 27 points in 26 minutes), Derrick Rose (17 points), and rookie Immanuel Quickley (10 points) who primarily made up for Randle’s poor game while keeping their team in the contest.īurks, in particular, made one clutch shot after another while scoring 18 of New York’s 32 fourth-quarter points, to finish a sizzling 9-for-13 from the floor. Going on a 15-3 run, the Knicks took their biggest lead, 73-66, with 1:12 left in the third quarter, but longtime bucket-getter Lou Williams (13 points in 13 bench minutes) hit a jumper and a 3-pointer over the final 32 seconds of the period to shrink Atlanta’s deficit to a more manageable 73-71 entering the final stanza.Īlthough starting shooting guard R.J. Sparked by their reserves, the Knicks closed to within 52-50 at halftime, with New York’s bench accounting for 34 points on 15-for-22 shooting by that point. New York trailed, 24-16, after going just 7-for-26 in the opening quarter. As a whole, that starting group ironically shot the same 6-for-23 in the first half that Randle shot for the game. Nevertheless, New York’s bench, buoyed by the electricity provided by 15,000 boisterous fans (a big increase from the Covid-induced 2,000-fan regular-season limit) was more than up to the task.Īmong the Knicks’ starters, it wasn’t just Randle who was struggling at the outset, as New York started just 2-for-14 from the field.
Randle’s struggles were a big departure from his output of 28 points on 11-for-19 shooting, 44 points on 14-for-22 shooting, and 40 points on 11-for-21 shooting, respectively, during the Knicks’ regular season, three-game sweep over the Hawks. Scoring 13 of his game-high 32 points over the final 6:43, Young’s floater in the lane with 0.9 seconds left gave the fifth-seeded Atlanta Hawks a thrilling 107-105 win in a very entertaining Game 1 in the NBA Eastern Conference quarterfinals.īefore that, it was the Knicks’ complements to Randle - especially their bench - who brought New York to the brink of a victory in their first playoff game in eight years despite Randle being held to just 15 points on 6-of-23 shooting. The fourth-seeded New York Knicks almost made that happen inside a raucous Madison Square Garden on Sunday night until MSG’s latest playoff villain, Trey Young, had other ideas.
#Trae young shush knicks series#
But when that does occur, it sure makes winning a playoff series a lot easier if that team can find another way to gut out a win. An NBA team is normally not going to have much of a chance to win a postseason game when its best player has an off night.
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