ATLANTA — The admission was telling.
There was no deflection or talking around the subject. No pointing to other problems. Dyson Daniels said it plainly.
“I just think their mindset was to come out and try to bully us and be physical,” he said. “And they did that.”
It’s not often NBA players acknowledge being bullied. They don’t usually like having their manhood or machismo questioned.
But it’s become glaring and unavoidable — the Knicks are manhandling the Hawks.
They had an 18-point advantage in points in the paint during their 126-97 Game 5 win over the Hawks Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, which gave them a 3-2 series lead heading back to Atlanta. They owned the glass, with 21 more rebounds. It helped them to an 11-point advantage in second-chance points.
“One of the things that we said we gotta do, we gotta box out,” coach Mike Brown said. “And we [only] gave up five offensive rebounds, which to that team is huge, because they’re one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the league. … We talked about boxing out. Our guys did an unbelievable job on the glass. I tell you, OG [Anunoby] and [Karl-Anthony Towns] were monsters. Between the two of them, they had 22 defensive rebounds. They both had a double-double. They were phenomenal. It’s huge for us to keep these guys off the glass.”
Coming into the series, most expected the Knicks to have a significant size advantage, particularly with Towns and the Hawks’ lack of a big man who can match up with him. It took a little while to materialize, but over the last two games, the Knicks have beaten up the Hawks and imposed their will.
After two straight one-point losses, the Knicks have responded with two straight blowouts. Their physical edge has been central to it.
“We’ve done a great job,” Towns said of what changed from Games 2 and 3 to Games 4 and 5, “executing with our physicality.”
As a result, it’s allowed the Knicks to dictate the game flow to a style that better suits them. The young and athletic Hawks love to run and score in transition. But the Knicks have bottled them up and forced them to play in the half-court, where their size advantage can be utilized. The Hawks had just four fast-break points Tuesday and seven in Game 4.
It’s been key to the Knicks defensive turnaround the past two games. They are forcing the Hawks to play in a style they are not comfortable with.
The decision to switch Josh Hart onto CJ McCollum plays into it. Hart is a much bigger, stronger and more physical defender than Jalen Brunson, who began the series guarding McCollum and struggled mightily. Hart’s physicality turned McCollum, who finished with six points on 3-for-10 shooting from the field, into a nonfactor Tuesday.
“Their defense never really let us establish consistently how we need to play to beat them,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “And we have to be more committed, it’s really like imposing your will on the offensive end. Moving and passing, you can feel possessions where that occurs and that’s when we’re efficient or have success. We had some shots that didn’t go in that’s always in play, but for us I think we need to execute on who we are and what we’ve done to be a good team. That’s hard when you play against a team of their caliber. That level for us, we didn’t hit it. And again, they had a lot to do with that.”
The uptick in physicality has meant the Knicks have taken fewer 3-pointers — they shot just 26 Tuesday, way down from their regular-season average of 38.2. Brown has constantly stressed his desire for the Knicks to take tons of 3-pointers, but with the way they are finding easy points in the paint, he said he “loves” the adjustment.
It’s not even just the Knicks who traditionally thrive inside who have been effective there. It’s been across the board.
“We just gotta take a stand,” Onyeka Okongwu said. “Obviously Brunson, KAT do their thing, but we can’t let dudes like [Jose] Alvarado get into the paint.
“Overall, we just gotta play through it. We can’t let their physicality take us out of what we want to do. That’s it.”
With the Hawks now facing elimination, the Knicks expect some sort of response in the physicality department.
“They’re probably gonna be aggressive again offensively in terms of crashing the glass, trying to get extra possessions, playing in transition,” Jordan Clarkson said. “I know they’re gonna try to bring a lot of force down there, so we gotta be prepared and we know what’s coming. We’ll be ready.”
As long as the Knicks are in fact ready, there is little the Hawks can do to combat their physical edge.
