The return of Kristaps Porzingis two days ago helped the Hawks break a long losing streak in a win against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
For tonight, the Hawks had the same team available as Trae Young sat
with a thigh contusion. The Knicks had some major injury struggles as well, down Karl Anthony-Towns, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson, and others, so Friday evening would be an opening for the Hawks to put together a winning streak.
Onyeka Okongwu powered the Hawks early on with a flurry of deep trailing threes:
The Hawks quickly took a 19-16 lead, but Jalen Brunson and the Knicks fought back after the first timeout.
Onyeka Okongwu and Kevin McCullar collided chasing a loose ball, and both players had to eventually leave the court for attention to close bleeding wounds (both later returned). But the Hawks remained largely effective on offense, and they managed a 33-30 after one quarter.
The Hawks opened up a couple of double-digit leads during the second quarter, but they could never quite pull away. It helped that the Knicks were shooting poorly from three, but Atlanta played some solid defense to force transition buckets here and there to stay in command.
Nickeil Alexander-Walker, in particular, created opportunities to score with his activity. Here, he made a nice back cut, and Jalen Johnson found him for two:
At halftime, the Hawks led 60-47. Alexander-Walker was the highest scorer for either team with 15 first half points.
In the second half, the Hawks quickly took control with a big run to take the lead to 71-51. After that, it was all about maintaining momentum and continuing to work for the 50/50 balls.
And that they did. Atlanta frustrated the Knicks in the third quarter, and they padded their lead even more. The Hawks absolutely got after it, holding New York to just 40 points combined in the second and third quarters, and they turned those stops into scores to break the game wide open.
After three, the good guys were in control 94-70.
Naturally, an 11-0 run gave the Knicks an immediate injection of energy. The game got really tight at 94-81, but Luke Kennard hit a pair of back-to-back triples to calm the nerves:
Atlanta still needed to see out the rest of this game, as the Knicks clearly wouldn’t roll over despite being undermanned.
It was a slog, but slowly, the Hawks got the game over the line, 111-99.
Jalen Johnson recorded yet another triple-double with 18 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. Okongwu added 23 points and nine rebounds, and Alexander-Walker also added 23 on the board.
The Hawks take this two-game winning streak up to Canada for two games against the Raptors beginning tomorrow.
