{"id":621343,"date":"2026-04-21T12:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621343\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T12:19:08","slug":"nba-playoffs-new-msg-villain-mccollum-leads-hawks-back-from-12-down-to-stun-knicks-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/621343\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA playoffs: new MSG villain McCollum leads Hawks back from 12 down to stun Knicks | NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

CJ McCollum scored 32 points and the Atlanta Hawks rallied to stun the New York Knicks<\/a> 107-106 on Monday night, tying their first-round playoff series at one game apiece.<\/p>\n

McCollum led a late surge that was almost for naught when he missed two free throws with 5.6 seconds remaining. The Knicks rushed the ball up the court without any timeouts left, but Mikal Bridges missed a jumper as time expired.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long game,\u201d McCollum said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to play to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks had trailed the whole second half and were down 12 after three quarters. Atlanta chipped away and a basket by McCollum gave the Hawks a 101-100 lead \u2013 their first of the series in the second half \u2013 with 2:09 to play. He made another for a three-point lead, and after Jalen Brunson tied it with a three-pointer, McCollum answered with another jumper to make it 105-103 with 33 seconds to play.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Kuminga added 19 points off the bench and Jalen Johnson scored 17, including a basket with 10 seconds left for a four-point lead for the No 6 seeds, who host Game 3 on Thursday Brunson had 29 points for the Knicks and Karl-Anthony Towns added 18.<\/p>\n

The Knicks are trying to reach the second round for a fourth straight season, their longest stretch since the 1991-92 to 1999-2000 seasons, and seemed well on their way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a game we should have won,\u201d New York\u2019s Josh Hart said. \u201cIn the playoffs you can\u2019t give away games.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks had been 40-1 in the postseason since the advent of the shot clock in 1954-55 when leading by 12 or more after three quarters. The only loss was when Reggie Miller scored 25 points in the fourth for Indiana in Game 5 of the 1994 Eastern Conference finals.<\/p>\n

Towns, who had four points in the first half, scored 14 in the third quarter as the Knicks extended the lead to 78-64. They were still ahead by eight with under five minutes remaining. But their young players who sparked the Hawks\u2019 surge after the All-Star break finally made some plays before McCollum \u2013 ignoring profane jeers after he and Jose Alvarado went nose-to-nose and were each given technical fouls in the third quarter \u2013 then closed it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m no villain, I\u2019m a nice guy with two kids and a wife,\u201d McCollum said when asked about his reception from the New York crowd. \u201cI think it\u2019s admiration. Great, passionate fans in a hostile environment. It\u2019s fun, it\u2019s basketball, it\u2019s the playoffs. If anything, I think it\u2019s a sign of respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCollum was acquired from Washington in the January trade for Trae Young, the Hawks star who was a former playoff villain at Madison Square Garden. He filled the role perfectly Monday, outplaying Brunson in the second half and stealing a game that looked lost.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s other games, Anthony Edwards scored 30 points, Julius Randle added 24 and Minnesota rallied past Denver to tie their Western Conference playoff series at 1-1. Denver had won 13 straight since losing on 18 March. Elsewhere, Donovan Mitchell scored 30 points, James Harden added 28 and the Cleveland Cavaliers held on for a 115-105 victory over the Toronto Raptors for a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CJ McCollum scored 32 points and the Atlanta Hawks rallied to stun the New York Knicks 107-106 on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-621343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621343","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=621343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}