The Hawks beat the Knicks 109-108 on Thursday to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven first-round series, with C.J. McCollum delivering the go-ahead basket with 12.7 seconds left. McCollum finished with 23 points, and Jonathan Kuminga added 21 in Game 3.
McCollum has been the series' most relentless scorer, averaging 27 points across the three games while taking a team-high 61 shots. Jalen Johnson has taken 50, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker 41, even though both have been Atlanta's two leading scorers in the series and both have struggled to find enough consistency.
The weight of Thursday's win sits in how Atlanta got here. Less than a year ago, the Hawks traded for Kristaps Porziņģis with the idea of pairing him with Trae Young, but that plan lasted only briefly. Young played 10 games before he was traded to Washington, Porziņģis played 17 before he was sent to Golden State, and the two were on the floor together for only three games and 51 minutes. The Hawks then acquired McCollum from Washington in January and Kuminga in a separate midseason move, and both have become central to this series against New York. For readers tracking the matchup, the game breakdown is also available in the Atlanta Hawks Vs Knicks Match Player Stats: Vegas Surges Under Tortorella report at usintimes.com/6305.
McCollum was playing for a tanking Wizards team before joining Atlanta, and coach Quin Snyder moved him into the starting lineup on Feb. 22. It was the first time McCollum had started after coming off the bench in 11 years, but the move fit quickly: in 30 regular-season games together, Atlanta's starting group posted a plus-20.3 net rating. Kuminga, meanwhile, had been stuck in a Warriors system that did not fit him and was seeing DNPs before the trade; now he is playing about 30 minutes a night, scored 21 points in 28 minutes in Game 3, and gave Atlanta the kind of instant offense it needed while guarding Karl-Anthony Towns at one end.
The tension in the series is that Atlanta has reached the level it wanted in a way it did not expect. The original Young-Porziņģis pairing never materialized, but the players obtained in those deals are the ones carrying the Hawks now, and McCollum repeatedly scored against Knicks All-Star Jalen Brunson when the game tightened late. If Atlanta keeps getting that version of McCollum and that kind of two-way burst from Kuminga, the Hawks vs Knicks series no longer looks like a matchup they are simply surviving; it looks like one they can control.
