Hawks put season in perspective after ugly 51-point elimination loss vs. Knicks

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Hawks put season in perspective after ugly 51-point elimination loss vs. Knicks

Malik Brown, ClutchPoints · ClutchPoints

Fri, May 1, 2026 ·

5 min read

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ATLANTA – The best felt like it was yet to come.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker hit a 3-pointer in the corner three minutes into Game 6, and it capped off a 9-0 run for the Atlanta Hawks . There was a mini crowd pop, and from there, it was hard to get a Hawks fan to get excited about much. The New York Knicks ran away with the game, led by as much as 61 points, and won 140-89 to send the Hawks home in the first round of the playoffs.

In the two games prior, the Knicks showed they were more physical . They made more shots, and they made it hard for the Hawks to score on the other end. They were slowly showing why they were a better team coming into the series despite trailing 2-1 just a week ago.

For the Hawks, they never reached that level the Knicks got to, and it showed in the biggest way in a win-or-go-home situation.

"The only thing I wanted us to really do was to hit back in any sort of fashion," Nickeil Alexander-Walker said after the game. "That was the only thing that was on my mind is when you're faced with what is reality, how do you respond? How can I somehow respond in a manner where the outcome may not be there, but out of respect for the game, for how hard I worked for my teammates, the city of Atlanta, just do something."

The game got out of reach in the first quarter, but it didn't get any better going into the second. Emotions got high, and Dyson Daniels and Mitchell Robinson were the headliners of a scuffle that found its way near fans on courtside. The result was two ejections.

In those moments, you'd hope that the emotions would turn into a pick-me-up for the home team. Instead, the Hawks continued to falter, and they trailed 83-36 going into halftime.

"It's hard for any of us to foresee that halftime score," Quin Snyder said. "I think the challenge at that point is just to continue to compete and to stay together, to stay connected, whether it's any opportunity you have, because we're all in this.

"We've all got to process this and own it, and it's tough. I thought our guys continued to compete in spite of that score or how we played."

Even if the Hawks did look like they were still competing, it didn't get any better for them to start the second half, and they continued to look for some sort of answer to stop the Knicks throughout the entire night.

It was a tough way to go out in an elimination game on your home court, but the Hawks don't want this loss to cloud what they were able to accomplish the entire season.

"Out of all the things we did accomplish this year, obviously, we're all just looking forward to being better," Jalen Johnson said. "This is a learning experience for us. We're growing. We're going to grow from this. We're definitely going to be better from it."

This was Johnson's first experience in the playoffs as the top player. Though Alexander-Walker has been to the Western Conference Finals the past two years, it was his first time shouldering more of a responsibility for his team in a playoff setting. Some more players on the team can say the same.

"The way we lost was, I think at no point in time at all this season were we that bad, but we were tonight," Alexander-Walker said. "And it's unfortunate. But the good thing about it is is doesn't end here. This is something to build on. It's something to grow from and learn from. For me, I'm glad that this is my story and something for me that I can embrace. I can hold my head as a man and say, I lost."

The Hawks might look back at this game, but they might not. It's something to learn from, but it doesn't tell the whole story of their season.

"Adversity hits us all, and in whatever form or shape it comes in, professionally, personally, you do find out more about yourself when things are really hard, and tonight was really hard," Snyder said. "We have a group of men in there who are quality people and compete. It doesn't feel like that right now, but I hope that as we move from this and the sting of this game begins to dampen somewhat, there are things that, having been here and been in the situation, independent of the result, that we can think about what we did before."

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