The New York Knicks held a comfortable lead for most of their Game 1 win last weekend.
Since then, the Atlanta Hawks have made things massively uncomfortable for an opponent with aspirations of a deep postseason run.
The pressure is intensifying for the Knicks, who will look to even up the first-round playoff series Saturday night when they visit the Hawks for Game 4.
“The reality of it is, it’s a seven-game series for a reason,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said after Jalen Brunson’s turnover with 1.2 seconds left ended a 109-108 loss in Game 3 on Thursday. “Stuff’s going to happen. Plenty of teams have been down 1-2, even OKC was down 1-2 last year and they ended up winning it. I’m not saying we’re going to win.
“This should sting. We gave ourselves a chance knowing we didn’t play our best basketball, so it should sting. We need to feel it and be locked in for the next games.”
If the Hawks can win again, they will get a chance to advance to the second round with another win in Game 5 on Tuesday in New York. If the Knicks can overcome their struggles in the past two games, the series will return to Atlanta for Game 6.
New York opened the first-round Eastern Conference series with a 113-102 win when it led by as many as 19 and shot 47.5%. New York was on the way to taking a 2-0 lead on Monday but lost a 13-point lead in the third quarter and suffered a 107-106 loss.
CJ McCollum scored 32 points in Game 2 and was clutch again to seize the series lead on Thursday. Atlanta led by 18 in the first half but lost an 11-point lead with 8:06 left in the fourth quarter before finishing off its win.
“It’s just everyone’s on a string,” Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels said. “Everyone’s playing for each other. I still think throughout the game we can do better with rotating, especially taking away layups.
“I think we take away the 3-point line, but we got to be early on the layups, but it’s a little thing we can work on. But overall, our guys are really flying around, having each other’s back, shifting for each other.”
McCollum capped a 23-point performance by hitting a 16-foot fadeaway with 12.7 seconds left and the Hawks finished it with a defensive stop when Jonathan Kuminga stole the ball from Brunson.
“I like the way we fought back, but there’s a lot of things throughout the game that myself, I can be better at,” Brunson said.
The defensive stand on Brunson was part of Atlanta’s stout defense through most of Game 3. The Hawks limited the Knicks to 43.0% shooting, forced 15 turnovers and were particularly effective in the opening quarter when they outscored New York 33-21.
“I think we set the tone right from the jump,” Atlanta forward Jalen Johnson said. “If we have that same mentality going into the next game I think we’ll put ourselves in a good position.”
Brunson scored 26 points and his three-point play gave the Knicks a 108-105 lead with 63 seconds left. OG Anunoby led the Knicks with 29 while Karl-Anthony Towns collected 21 points and 17 rebounds,
Knicks starters Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart combined for two points on 1-of-12 shooting.
Hart played 40 minutes and had nine rebounds, but Bridges was limited to 21 minutes as reserve Miles McBride contributed 15 points in 31 minutes by hitting five of New York’s 10 3-pointers.
