Knicks rout Hawks by 51 points
- New York blasted Atlanta 140-89 in Game 6 on April 30, closing the first-round series 4-2 and sending the Knicks into the East semifinals. (espn.com) - The margin was 51 points, with an 83-36 halftime score that set the biggest halftime lead in NBA playoff history. (espn.com) - It turns a shaky six-game series into a statement win before New York’s second-round matchup is finalized. (nba.com)
The Knicks didn’t just finish off the Hawks on Thursday night. They detonated the series. New York won 140-89 in Atlanta, took the first-round matchup(espn.com)he strangest closeout games you’ll ever see. By halftime, the game was basically over. By the end, the Knicks had the(espn.com) NBA postseason has ever seen. (espn.com) ##(nba.com) 40-15 after one quarter, then pushed it to 83-36 at the half. That 47-point gap broke the NBA playoff record for halftime margin, and New York eventually won by 51. At one point, the lead reached 61, which ESPN noted was a playoff-game record in the play-by-play era. (espn.com) ### Who drove it for New York? OG Anunoby was the top scorer with 29 points in just 27 minutes. Karl-Anthony Tow(espn.com)actly the kind of balanced, low-drama production you want in a closeout. Jalen Brunson didn’t need to carry the whole thing because the game got out of hand so fast. (msn.com) ### What went wrong for(espn.com)n game did. Atlanta scored only 36 points in the first half, turned the ball over 14 times before halftime, and watched New York shoot better than 60% overall while hitting 44% from 3 in the opening half. Once the Hawks fell behind that hard, there wasn’t really a tactical adjustment left to make — it became damage control. (abc7ny.com)d Mitchell Robinson were ejected after a fight in the first half, with offsetting technicals in the middle of a game that was already tilting into absurd territory. That didn’t change the outcome, but it did capture the mood — Atlanta was frustrated, New York was rolling, and the game had stopped feeling competitive long before the fourth quarter. (apnews.com)ewrote a few lines of Knicks playoff history. New York set franchise postseason highs for points scored and margin of victory, and the halftime number put the game into league-history territory, not just team-history territory. Blowouts usually fade fast. A record-setting one in a series clincher sticks. (sports.yahoo.com) ### Does this mean the K(apnews.com)x-game stroll. The Hawks had pushed New York earlier in the matchup, and the Knicks needed adjustments after dropping Games 2 and 3. So this result says less about every future round being easy and more about New York finding a gear Atlanta couldn’t handle once the series tightened. (nba.com) ### What happens now? The Knick(sports.yahoo.com)y night because Boston and Philadelphia were heading to Game 7 on May 2. So New York gets the best possible version of a playoff luxury — a series-clinching win, a bunch of starters spared heavy late minutes, and a couple of days to watch someone else sweat. (nba.com) ### Bottom line? This was a closeout game, but it felt more like a warning shot. New York (nba.com)
