{"id":616541,"date":"2026-04-19T06:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616541\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T06:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T06:07:08","slug":"jalen-brunson-nets-28-points-knicks-outlast-hawks-in-game-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/616541\/","title":{"rendered":"Jalen Brunson nets 28 points; Knicks outlast Hawks in Game 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — The road was paved for Jalen Brunson<\/a> to add to his litany of exploits, perhaps posting his 10th 40-point playoff game on the fourth anniversary of his first such accomplishment.<\/p>\n

But that possibility ended during his rough second half, when he went 0-for-7 from the floor. He still did enough to help the New York Knicks<\/a> beat the Atlanta Hawks<\/a> 113-102<\/a> in Game 1 of their first-round series.<\/p>\n

Brunson scored 22 of his game-high 28 points in the first half and hit his first six shots in front of an energetic Madison Square Garden crowd.<\/p>\n

But even though he struggled in the final 24 minutes, the Knicks’ depth helped New York build a 19-point lead in the second half.<\/p>\n

“It was a hard-fought win. It was physical,” Brunson said. “It was a grind-it-out game.”<\/p>\n

Brunson was inadvertently kicked in the groin area by Hawks guard C.J. McCollum on a jump shot in the third quarter, thus resulting in a technical foul.<\/p>\n

Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>, who came alive in the second half to finish with 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists, was elbowed in the head on a rebound by Hawks forward Jonathan Kuminga<\/a>. Knicks backup center Mitchell Robinson<\/a> was also hit in the groin area by Jalen Johnson<\/a> on a drive.<\/p>\n

So, Brunson’s words weren’t just obvious statements.<\/p>\n

Neither his shooting woes or the kick was able to deter him from being effective in the second half, as he facilitated and competed on the defensive end. Hawks guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker<\/a>, a candidate for the NBA’s Most Improved Player, averaged nearly 21 points per game this season and shot around 40 percent from 3-point range. But the relentless activity by the Knicks on the perimeter kept him bottled up. He shot just 6-for-17 with 17 points.<\/p>\n

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“It’s really important, you never know what’s going to happen,” Brunson said. “There’s going to be highs and lows of a season, highs and lows of a game, and to be able to fight through and still find a way to impact, is very important for us, especially this point of the season.”<\/p>\n

It was at this point, when Brunson first began to gain notoriety in Dallas, playing behind Luka Doncic<\/a>. With Doncic out with injury, Brunson scored 41 in Game 2 of Dallas’ first-round series against the Utah Jazz<\/a> in 2022. The coach of that Jazz team was current Hawks coach Quin Snyder.<\/p>\n

“Luka was out and that provided an opportunity where there was a need and he was prepared for that with how good of a player he was,” Snyder said before Game 1. “It was in some ways foreshadowing, you could feel it. You knew when he was doing some of the things he was doing in that series, it was there.”<\/p>\n

Brunson dominated those games back then with scoring, and while that’s still his main tool, he’s been more of a facilitator in recent weeks. He is averaging nearly nine assists since March 1, a career-best, 19-game stretch.<\/p>\n

In addition to Towns, OG Anunoby<\/a> stepped forward in Game 1, scoring 19 while Josh Hart<\/a> scored 11 with 14 rebounds for the Knicks. New York coach Mike Brown has been preaching sacrifice all season and for a night, his players could see the long-term benefits of being able to step into the spotlight when the moment calls for it.<\/p>\n

“We have capable guys,” Brown said. “We feel like this team is deep and anybody can get going at any time. For us, it’s about sacrifice and not worrying about shots or minutes or anything. [Jalen] was good defensively, he was good commanding a double team. It’s something we’re going to face the entire playoff and we have to make sure we continue to be on point about it.”<\/p>\n

Towns was the beneficiary, scoring 19 after the half. The topic of his and Brunson’s chemistry has been a daily topic since Towns arrived before the start of last year’s training camp, and while it hasn’t developed into the unstoppable force it was predicted to be, it’s still growing.<\/p>\n

“The longer we’re on the court together, our chemistry is better,” Brunson said. “We’ve grown as teammates, we’ve grown as friends and it contributed to the way we’re playing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — The road was paved for Jalen Brunson to add to his litany of exploits, perhaps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-616541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}