Brunson scores 39, Knicks win 126-97

The Knicks didn’t just beat the Hawks in Game 5 — they flattened the series into something much simpler. New York won 126-97 on Tuesday, (apnews.com)ays earlier. That matters because close series can change on one hot shooting night, but this looked more like a team finding the ver(foxsports.com)tire night. (apnews.com). The Knicks went up 35-22 after the first quarter and carried a 64-35 lead into halftime, so this wasn’t one of those games that turned on a late run. Atlanta spent most of the night trying to survive the next possession, not actually threatening to steal the game. (foxsports.com) ### What did Brunson actually do? Brunson scored 39 and added 8 assists, which is basically the whole offensive control panel in o(apnews.com)wks tried to crowd him. The almost-funny part is that 39 barely missed adding another 40-point playoff game to his franchise record. (apnews.com) ### Was this only a Brunson game? No — and that’s the scary part for Atlanta. NBA.com’s takeaway from the (foxsports.com)s defended hard, moved the ball well enough for Brunson’s playmaking to matter, and never let the offense devolve into desperate isolation possessions. (nba.com) ### What went wrong for Atlanta? The Hawks never found rhythm from deep, and that mattered because they were already chasing (apnews.com)eback, the math gets ugly fast. That’s what happened here — the deficit kept growing because Atlanta didn’t have the shot-making to change the geometry of the floor. (nba.com) ### Why is the early lead such a big deal? Because it let the Knicks play downhill without panic. A team up 20 doesn’t need miracle possessio(nba.com)instead of forcing hero ball. The game started to look less like a playoff coin flip and more like a script the Knicks were writing themselves. (foxsports.com) ### How much did this swing the series? A lot. NBA.com noted that New York had trailed the series four days earl(nba.com)p. Two straight lopsided Knicks wins turned a tense first-round matchup into one where Atlanta suddenly faced elimination. (nba.com) ### What happened next? The immediate stakes were clear after Game 5 — New York had a chance to close the series in Game 6 in Atlanta. And that’s exactly what hap(foxsports.com)t the series stopped being competitive and started tilting hard toward New York. (espn.com) ### Bottom line Game 5 wasn’t just Brunson going off. It was the Knicks showing they had a gear Atlanta couldn’t match — and once that gear showed up, the series was basically over. (nba.com)