Dept of Did You See?: Watched a barn-burner: Knicks @ ATL: up and down for both teams, Knicks up 81-79 to start the 4th; 90-90 with 5:30 left. Nickeil Alexander-Walker (N A-W) hits a step-back 20 footer. Dude was en fuego for this game: 36 pts on 7 for 11 from deep. Hawks up 2 with 5:07 left. OG hits 2 FTs to tie it at 92 with 4:35 left. Dyson Daniels hits a shot; Josh Hart makes a bad pass and N A-W hits a 3: Hawks up 5 with 3:45 left. Brunson hits a floater and gets fouled: Hawks by 2 with 3:15 left. CJ hits N A-W for another 3: back up 5, just under 3 mins left. Brunson hits another little floater: ATL by 3. N A-W misses a driving layup, well-defended, ATL gets the offensive board, but Knicks get a shot-clock violation, then KAT dishes to Brunson for a deep 3: tied at 100 with 2:20 left. ATL crowd is totally in this, as their team has been very hot for the past 6 weeks and has moved way up in the East standings. They are believers in their team, even against the very good Knicks. ATL crowd thinks the Hawks can beat anyone; I don't think they can beat the damned Bags in a series, but WTF do I know? Brunson steals off CJ, makes a breaking layup: Knicks by 2. Snyder takes a timeout. CJ drives the lane and throws up a high-arcing floater we've seen a thousand times; it hits the back of the rim and bounces in. 102-102 with 1:54 left. What rhymes with crowd? LOUD. Brunson misses a 10 footer, Hart gets the offensive board, it gets kicked out to Bridges, who misses a 26 footer; Hart gets ANOTHER offensive board; with 1 sec left on the 14, Brunson drives for a layup: misses! Okongwu gets the rebound, ATL goes down and N A-W pulls up for a 25 foot 3: not "bang!": he misses. Still tied at 102, now with 51 secs left; OG scrambles for the rebound and Knicks work it around, lots of touches, Brunson hits a step-back 18 foot jumper. 104-102 with 29 secs left. ATL comes down, uses a set play (I think), and gets a good look for Jalen Johnson for a 10 foot bank, but it misses. Talk about heart-buhreak! Ya gotta hit that muthah, Johnson! 104-102 Knicks with 7.6 left when KAT gets the board and CJ fouls OG with 5.4 left. If he hits the first they're up 3. ATL still has one timeout left, so OG needs to hit both to seal it. OG is one with ice water in his veins: hits 'em both: Knicks up 106-102 with 5.4 left. Ballsy. The crowd sounds subdued, which means they're paying attention. Snyder burns their last timeout. Looks foregone. What a drag for ATL; they were up 10 at one point in this game, but what's 10 points these days, eh? CJ hits a wide-open 3 with 2.2 left. 106-105 Knicks with 1.5 left, Mike Brown takes a timeout, which is by the book. Daniels fouls Brunson immediately. Brunson hits both. 108-105. He probably should have intentionally missed the 2nd? Anyway, Hawks inbound to CJ, who takes two dribbles (one too many?) and banks in a 60 foot 3 to tie the game. Did he get it off in time? The crowd is bonkers. Replay shows the ball left his fingertips about 1/10 of a second late: game over. Josh Hart is seen saying "good game" to CJ and they both laffed. Whatever was said: it was a good game. At times I think: who's got the best Jalen? Hawks's Jalen Johnson had to hit that bank, and Brunson had something like 17 in the 4th, and when he was shooting those 2 FTs with 1.5 left, the Atlanta crowd was shouting "MVP"...maybe to psych him out?
In OT win vs. POR: Jokic 35/14/13 with 5 steals and 2 blocks in 43 mins. Adelman played Joker in 43 of the game's 53 mins. Guess he thought they HAD to have the win. Meanwhile, Wemby took an elbow to the ribs.
