The joint was jumping. The place was percolating. From the layup lines, this was one of those games at Madison Square Garden where you realized — when the Atlanta Hawks surely realized — that there would be no need for the Maalox or the Pepto-Bismol. Nobody would be tripping on acid indigestion this time.
You get a game like this sometimes, even in the playoffs. The Knicks started fast. They started sharp. And the lead, it kept growing. The Hawks couldn’t shoot. They couldn’t defend. They couldn’t keep up with the Knicks, couldn’t stay in front of Jalen Brunson, couldn’t do anything about Karl-Anthony Towns, couldn’t keep OG Anunoby from his Swiss Army knife brilliance.
“They took it to us,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said after the Knicks rolled to a 126-97 Game 5 blowout win over his overmatched club.
If they’d allowed Snyder 15 timeouts Tuesday night, he probably would have taken all 15. Wouldn’t have worked. You half expected him to do like that old Jets coach, Sal Alosi, who wandered onto the field a few years ago and tripped a Dolphins player during a punt. Snyder could have cleverly clotheslined a couple of Knicks, wouldn’t have mattered.
