IT’S SO HARD TO BE AWAY!
Knicks fall to 1-5 on road with loss to putrid Hawks
ATLANTA – For those playoff aspirations to get real, for those early positive vibes to carry through the meat of the season, the Knicks still have to prove they can win on the road.
They’ve been dreadful in a limited sample. At home, the Knicks have been splendid surprises serenaded with ‘MVP chants,’ admittedly feeding off the crowd’s energy. Away from the Garden, they’ve been blown out four times.
Which made Friday’s 116-104 defeat to the Hawks just an utterly disappointing result to a litmus test.
“We’ve just got to find some type of formula or some type of mental attitude, mindset, going into these games away from our place,” Tim Hardaway Jr. said. “I mean, we feed off our crowd when they give us energy when we’re at home. So when we’re on the road we’ve got to realize we’re 15 strong and have each other’s back out there.”
There may not be a worse team in the NBA than the Hawks (4-15), who only three seasons ago won 60 games but are now tanking with great enthusiasm. Moreover, Philips Arena is hardly an intimidating atmosphere for the visitors. The Knicks fans probably outnumbered the Hawks fans Friday. They were both minorities to the indifferent crowd.
But the Knicks (10-8, 1-5 on the road) couldn’t overcome the absence of Enes Kanter – who was sidelined with back spasms – and their own sloppiness with 20 combined turnovers. Kristaps Porzingis rediscovered his stroke and finished with 28 points, but the Knicks went silent down the stretch and were outscored in the second half, 57-37.
In the end, it was another blowout loss on the road.
“It has to come from us, from inside,” Porzingis said. “We got to be able to motivate each other and push each other and stay together in those tough moments.”
Hardaway Jr.’s return to Atlanta was largely a disappointment, although he was the subject of a video tribute on the Jumbotron and salvaged a strong stat line with a fourth quarter scoring surge. He finished with 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting. The centers who filled in for Kanter – Kyle O’Quinn and Willy Hernangomez – were inefficient and inadequate, especially defensively.
Still, even with Kanter sidelined, the Knicks stormed out to a 17-point lead in the first quarter while shooting, remarkably, 76 percent and scoring 39 points. Jeff Hornacek couldn’t have asked for a better beginning.
“The second quarter was a killer,” Hornacek said. “You come out and see it all the time in the NBA. The other team scores a lot of points in the first quarter and relaxes a little bit. You don’t think the next play is important. All of a sudden you’ve given the home team confidence.”
On the back of point guard Dennis Schroder (26 points, eight assists), the Hawks chipped at New York’s lead and took one of their own in the third quarter. Even with Courtney Lee pouring in 26 points on 11-of14 shooting, the Knicks couldn’t overcome their road issues – which apparently run deep.