NEW YORK _ One day after Zion Williamson and his Duke University teammates held court at Madison Square Garden, providing a tease to the top of the NBA draft, the Knicks and Hawks played as if they were determined to chase the top pick.
The Knicks took a big early lead, watching it disappear and the Hawks, even while scoring just one field goal in the last three minutes, managed to hang on for a 114-107 win. The loss was the fourth straight for the Knicks and their 11th in their last 13 games.
The loss dropped the Knicks a half-game behind Atlanta in the Eastern Conference and at least momentarily put them in a virtual tie for the second-worst record in the NBA.
The Knicks jumped out to leads of as many as 15 points in the first half, spurred by the early offense of Knox, who hit 7 of 8 shots in the first quarter, finishing the period with 17 points. Just 17 seconds into the second quarter he scored again, but would add only five more points the rest of the way.
With Knox cooling off the Hawks rallied all the way back, taking a lead midway through the third quarter and then entering the fourth quarter trailing just 89-87. Midway through the fourth, Atlanta center Alex Len hit a 3-pointer to put the Hawks up 102-99 and Knox misfired on a 3 on the other end. Atlanta rookie Trey Young, who had just 13 points on the night, broke through the defense for a layup and the Hawks were up 104-99 with 3:46 to play.
"It's still a tough one for everyone involved," Knicks president Steve Mills said earlier in the day, before the Knicks fell to 9-25 on the season. "I mean obviously I'm not happy, we're not happy with our record. Even though this is a rebuilding process, I think we've been pretty clear that sort of our approach is to try to win every game we possibly can.
"While our guys are competitive and they are finding a way to fight in games, one of the things that happens when you see young players play is they don't always know how to keep themselves out of digging deep, deep holes. We have too frequently found a way to have one really, really bad quarter in a game. We've got to find a way to eliminate those things from how we're approaching sort of our day-to-day activities."
