Randle leads Knicks to O/T win

The New York Knicks won their 8th straight game on Wednesday, beating the Hawks to take sole possession of fourth place in the Eastern Conference.

Hawks are still primed to return to the post-season but will be sweating over the health of Trae Young who left the game with a sprained ankle.

A tight game early on was brought to life by Trae Young, who began to have his way with the Knicks defense. Trae dropped 16 pts & 5 assists in the first as Atlanta lead by as many as seven. The Knicks stayed in touch thanks to their three point shooting, beginning the game 6 of 7 from deep but the Hawks still went into the second up five.

The Knicks second unit brought the fight to Atlanta to begin the second and took the lead midway through thanks to an Obi Toppin dunk.

The Knicks were up four with a minute left in the first half but the Hawks went in with the lead as Trae Young continued to dominate the New York defense. HT: Hawks 69-67 Knicks.

The Hawks retained their momentum from the first half as they stretched their lead out to as big as 10 points in the third. Just like on Tuesday against Charlotte, RJ Barrett came to life out of halftime. The Sophomore & Julius Randle combining for 16 points in the third.

The Hawks were six points up when Trae Young was forced out of the game with a sprained ankle after an awkward landing with 1:13 to go in the third and were able to extend the lead to seven to close the quarter.

The Knicks closed to within three points of the lead early in the fourth but were quickly looking up once again as the Hawks stretched the lead back to eight.

Immanuel Quickley & Derrick Rose had been crucial to the Knicks through their winning run and proved so again as IQ hit back to back threes to close the gap to within two before Rose levelled the scores with a layup. Together the bench duo inspired a 14 point turnaround.

Without Young the Hawks race appeared to be run before Bogdanovic took over down the stretch. Julius Randle thought he had secured the win when he hit a layup with 8.4 seconds remaining to extend the Knicks lead to three but Bogdanovic answered from the corner to send the game to overtime.

The Knicks defense let them down in closing out the game but they were at their best in overtime, giving up just five points in the extra period.

Quickley started things off in O/T, as the Knicks built up an early 10 point lead but Atlanta stayed in touch. Bogdanovic hitting a heavily contested three to cut the lead to five before Barrett & Quickley iced the game for New York.

Barrett hitting a fallaway floater from behind the basket before Quickley hit yet another three to stretch the lead to 10 once more with 44.5 seconds remaining. The Knicks shot 54% from three as a team with Randle going 6 of 8 on his way to 40 pts 10 rebs & 6 assists, while Quickley added 20 off the bench including four threes.

Final Score at MSG: Hawks 127-137 Knicks.