Even a Madison Square Garden crowd in full roar wasn’t enough to help the New York Knicks fend off the Atlanta Hawks, who needed just one game over the minimum to push aside the Knicks and advance to the second round against the Philadelphia 76ers with a 103-89 win in Game 5.
But for a short series there were no shortage of storylines. There were plenty of skirmishes and hard fouls and low scoring throughout. Given the Knicks being in the middle of it, it felt like the 1990s all over again
Takeaways:
1. Win or lose, it hardly mattered. Well, it mattered to the Knicks, and the city of New York, which was entirely the point. The Knicks were relevant in 2020-21, for the first time in a generation, arguably. No one predicted it, which made it all the sweeter. That New York failed to protect its home-court advantage in the first round as the fourth seed was disappointing to anyone close to the situation, but from a step removed simply hearing the Garden crowd in full throat was a pleasure. Even before the series, the prospect of meaningful basketball as summer approached and the city awoke from its pandemic-induced slumber was enticing.
“Winning in New York City (is) like a whole, a whole different level,” Knick guard and Canadian national member RJ Barrett told me in an interview earlier this week. “To see how, even with the limited amount of fans we have, how loud it gets in there and then after the game, just seeing videos on Twitter of people going crazy outside the arena, it’s been a lot of fun. It’s just been such an honour to be able to kind of help change things around.”
They didn’t get it all the way there. A win pushing the series to six games in Atlanta and maybe – just maybe – a Game 7 back at the Garden would have brought the house down. Unfortunately for Barrett and the Knicks, the resurgent Hawks had something to say about that. But the rest of league has been reminded: A good basketball team in New York is an event; not a bad advertisement for a still-building Knicks team sitting on a small mountain of cap space.
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2. What a season for Barrett, the second-year wing from Mississauga, Ont., who was roundly criticized – and perhaps unfairly – for an underwhelming rookie season. As the No. 3-overall pick, he was left off the NBA’s all-rookie teams in 2019-20 and finished as one of the least efficient offensive players in the league.
But Barrett didn’t pout. He put himself through his own off-season training camp, huddling in Florida with his skills coach, Drew Hanlen, rebuilding and then fine-tuning his shooting stroke. The results were borderline shocking. After converting just 32 per cent of his threes as a rookie, Barrett shot 40.1 per cent in year two. From mid-February through the end of the regular season he was on fire, connecting on 45.8 per cent from deep on nearly five attempts a game.
His defence improved under Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau and he remained a good rebounder and willing playmaker. The playoffs were yet another test and proof that Barrett’s game remains a work in progress. Through the first four games, he shot just 27 per cent from deep and 39.6 per cent overall. He was active elsewhere, grabbing 7.3 rebounds in just 30.6 minutes a game and averaging 2.5 assists with fewer than one turnover a game.
His minutes were down from the regular season, though, as Thibodeau leaned more and more on veterans like Derrick Rose and Taj Gibson. With the Knicks’ season on the line Wednesday night, Barrett’s shot still lagged and his driving and finishing against the Hawks’ packed paint was not yet in his bag. Still, he did find a way to put up 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
On the year Barrett proved himself a very effective NBA player in his second season and at just 20 years old, there is plenty of runway. He’ll bring a more polished game to the Canadian men’s team camp in mid-June as he sets on to help another team trying to return to a shinier past with an eye on the Olympic Qualifying Tournament from June 29th-July 4th in Victoria.
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3. Trae Young was drafted at the wrong time.
It’s not his fault he’s not Luka Doncic — the Slovenian wonderkid who was taken third in 2018 by Atlanta and then traded to Dallas in exchange for Young, taken fifth overall, and a 2019 first-round pick that ended up being Cam Reddish. As Doncic has turned himself into a perennial MVP candidate as a power point guard, using his six-foot-nine burliness to dominate games, the under-sized Young has suffered in comparison. But the lightning-quick guard, who at his best inspires comparisons to some combination of Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving, is proving he might have some MVP votes in his future, too.
It’s not just that the fifth-seeded Hawks averaged an impressive 120.5 points per 100 possessions when he was on the floor in the regular season compared to the pedestrian 108.5 the Hawks put up without him. It’s that in Madison Square Garden, with a Thibodeau defence loaded up against him and the crowd gunning for him, Young didn’t flinch. He silenced the crowd with his game-winner in Game 1 and sent them home for the season with 36 points and nine assists, albeit on 10-of-28 shooting.
Young was happy to play the villain, shushing the crowd on every make; taking a bow at centre court after a salt-in-the-wound 30 footer at the end of regulation. He’s sleight, but feisty, and comfortable under the skins of everyone he plays against. He may not be Doncic, but he’s proving himself a factor in the league when the stakes get higher.
Icy off the glass pic.twitter.com/72Af2jL12g
— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) June 3, 2021
4. There were a lot of raised eyebrows when Nate McMillan was fired by the Indiana Pacers in the off-season. The veteran head coach had taken the Pacers to the playoffs four years running, and while he hadn’t made it out of the first round, they were typically mitigating factors.
That his replacement, rookie head coach and former Toronto Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren, couldn’t get the Pacers past the play-in tournament suggests the problems ran deeper than MacMillan’s coaching. That he was a minority head coach at a time when questions were increasingly being raised about the need for more diversity in the NBA coaching made the firing even more notable.
But McMillan got his chance when the Hawks became impatient with their slow start and fired Lloyd Pierce. McMillan, Pierce’s assistant, took over a 14-20 team and guided it to a 27-11 finish and now a gentleman’s sweep in the first round.
5. It was hard not to watch Knicks forward Julius Randle struggle repeatedly against the Hawks and not be reminded of DeMar DeRozan if you’re a Raptors fan.
Randle was outstanding this season. He averaged 24 points, 10 rebounds and six assists while shooting 41.1 per cent from three – all career highs. He was the obvious choice for the league’s Most Improved Player award; he should earn all-NBA honours and may even have gotten some MVP votes. But in the playoffs, the game-planning starts and the Hawks committed to loading up on Randle, requiring him to see two and sometimes three defenders on every touch.
It can be an overwhelming experience for a young scorer. Randle finished Game 5 with 23 points and 13 rebounds, but shot just 29.7 per cent for the series. Through his first 25 playoff games, DeRozan shot just 37 per cent from the floor. Over his next 28, he’s shot 45.8 per cent – almost precisely in line with his career average of 46 per cent.
There’s more to it than that, but being a primary option in the post-season is a whole different thing. Based on his growth in recent years, Randle will figure things out, but – like many before him – carrying a team in the regular season and in the post-season are very different loads.
