Dan DevineSenior writerTue, April 21, 2026 at 4:39 AM UTC·8 min readNEW YORK — The version of the Atlanta Hawks that entered the 2026 NBA playoffs is drastically different from the one that began the campaign back in October. Franchise centerpiece Trae Young is gone; so, too, is key offseason addition Kristaps Porziņģis. The team dramatically reoriented its identity in early January, changed its starting lineup in February, and hit the gas after the All-Star break — a whiplash-inducing sprint to the East’s No. 6 seed.
“The guys that have been here through that — Jalen [Johnson], Nickeil [Alexander-Walker], Dyson [Daniels] and Onyeka [Okongwu], those guys in particular — you know, to see them kind of hang in there and believe in what we were trying to do foundationally and kind of our identity, and get rewarded for it,” head coach Quin Snyder said before Game 2. “We're happy to be here, grateful to be here and all that, but at the same time, I just don't want to put a ceiling on this group. We are young. First time, kind of, our core guys have been in this situation.
“But at the same time, you know, I think it's also true that you can embrace the opportunity to have success in the playoffs, as well.”
And now, after a rough run in Game 1, these young Hawks have some success in the playoffs, erasing a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit to score a 107-106 victory that shocked the Madison Square Garden faithful and wrested home-court advantage away from the favored Knicks, knotting the best-of-seven series at 1-1 as the scene shifts to Atlanta. Game 3 tips at State Farm Arena at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday.
HawksATL6Final1234ATL23312528NY32293015Final106KnicksNY3Tied 1-1MSG has found its Trae Young replacementEarly in the first quarter, you could hear a stray “F*** Trae Young!” chant or two from the rafters at MSG. Those fans obviously know the diminutive point guard who sent the Knicks home from the playoffs in 2021 is no longer a member of the Atlanta roster; they just hadn’t identified a substitute villain worthy of their derision and scorn.
In Game 1, CJ McCollum kicked Jalen Brunson below the belt on a jump shot, then claimed the Knicks star was acting in search of an unwarranted call. (He later rescinded that claim; the NBA did not rescind the technical he received for the kick.) In Game 2, though, he hit the entire city of New York where the sun don’t shine.
McCollum scored a game-high 32 points on 12-for-22 shooting to pace a Hawks team that desperately needed both the leadership and the buckets he could provide. When nobody else in a Hawks uniform could get untracked against a swarming New York defense early, McCollum scored 18 points in the first half to keep the Knicks from running away. When Jose Alvarado, his former Pelicans teammate, was giving the Knicks a boost late in the third quarter, McCollum stepped up to him:
Double Ts for McCollum & Alvarado, the Garden's new villain and new hero pic.twitter.com/T899DF0pKg
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) April 21, 2026
That bout of jawing that resulted in double technical fouls — and a new chant inside MSG:
Knicks fans went from “F—k Trae Young” to “F—k you CJ” in MSG 😭He didn’t seem too bothered 🤣 pic.twitter.com/KgsjtVFxmu
And after a spirited early fourth-quarter comeback put the game back within striking distance when McCollum checked back in with 7:38 to go in the game — to a chorus of boos from the Garden stands — he was the one who seized it.
A drive-and-kick to set up Alexander-Walker for a corner 3 cut a six-point deficit in half with just over four minutes to go. A filthy move put Brunson on skates, clearing the lane for a runner to give the Hawks the lead with 2:08 remaining.
Asked CJ McCollum if he was hunting the Jalen Brunson matchup late in the game and if that’s a matchup that he likes 1 on 1.CJ: “What do you think?”Me: “Yeah.”C.J.: “Yeah.”
Another iso-torching of Brunson after a pair of missed OG Anunoby free throws pushed the lead to 103-100 with just over 90 seconds in regulation. And after Brunson drilled a pull-up 3 to knot the game, McCollum answered right back, this time beating All-Defensive wing OG Anunoby with a tough baseline fadeaway to give the Hawks a lead they would not relinquish. Not even after he missed a pair of free throws with 5.6 seconds to go, giving New York one last chance that, like the rest of that fateful fourth quarter, went awry, leveling the series and earning McCollum a moniker that he doesn’t necessarily seem to relish.
“I am no villain,” McCollum said after the game. “I am a nice guy with two kids and a wife.”
The people of New York would beg to differ. And now, thanks to McCollum’s work, they’ll get another chance to tell him so when the Hawks come back here for Game 5 next Tuesday.
The Knicks led by 14 midway through the third quarter, and by 12 at the start of the fourth — a lead built on the strength of a balanced scoring effort, with six players in double figures, and by leveraging their size advantages to the tune of 10 offensive rebounds leading to 22 second-chance points, a 37-24 edge on the boards and a 50-36 advantage in points in the paint.
And then, in the fourth quarter, virtually all of that evaporated.
A Knicks team that had the NBA’s best fourth-quarter net rating and that outscored opponents by more than 20 points per 100 possessions in “clutch” situations during the regular season managed just 15 points on 5-for-22 shooting in the final frame. Before hitting two big 3-pointers in the last minute and a half, Brunson had missed three of his four fourth-quarter tries, continuing a cold snap ever since that red-hot start to Game 1. He is now 19-for-48 (39.6%) in this series, just 12-for-34 (35.3%) in the paint and only 3-for-11 (27.3%) in the fourth quarter — a far cry from the crunch-time heroics we’ve come to expect from New York’s captain.