The Knicks blew the Hawks out of the 2026 NBA playoffs in a historic fashion tonight as they destroyed them 140-89 despite being on the road in Atlanta. Karl-Anthony Towns helped Jalen Brunson with the playmaking duties tonight and racked up his second triple-double of this series.
He finished the game with 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists. But the main surprise, other than the team’s scoreline, was that Towns managed to get this triple-double while making only one of his four shot attempts throughout the game (25.0 FG%) and going 10-10 from the free-throw line.
After the game, Towns himself sounded shocked and impressed with his own accomplishment after hinting that he was shocked to see the Hawks not be at their best tonight, despite being a solid team.
“I thought they were going to come out and be their best. And I talked about it, we can’t just meet the moment, we’ve got to exceed it. And I thought we did a great job of doing that tonight,” said Towns initially.
“That’s an amazing team on the other side, very well coached. We knew we needed to be our best tonight if we wanted to win, and I thought we did a good job of coming close to that.”
“I only had four shots?” said a shocked Towns when Lisa Salters told him about his accomplishment tonight.
Even at the postgame press conference, Towns addressed his ability to become the primary playmaker tonight and what it felt like to have the Knicks trust him enough to run the offense through him.
“I just wanted to answer the call. You ask for the opportunities, and they obliged, and I got to repay that trust and that opportunity. So I just wanted to do what I always talk to y’all about, which is impacting winning. I just got more chances to do that, and I make sure to take advantage of them. I’m just proud that I was able to help us win,” said Towns.
He also voiced how proud he was of his team, that they managed to come back after trailing early in the series following consecutive gut-punching one-point losses early on.
This was the first time in the past 30 years (since the beginning of the NBA’s play-by-play era in 1996-97) that a road team reached 100 points in a playoff elimination game before the home team even reached 50 points, in 37,964 games played.
The Knicks now await the winner of the Celtics–76ers series that was forced to a Game 7 following tonight’s dominant win for Philadelphia. Depending on the result of their Game 7 on Saturday night, the Knicks will await the opponent in Game 1 of their second-round series, potentially on Monday, May 4.
It will be interesting to see if the Knicks can carry over their momentum into the second round after this resounding win over the Hawks.
