Hawks Fall to Knicks As NBA Puts Season On Hold
ATLANTA -- As the final seconds ticked off New York’s win over the Hawks on Wednesday night, the players involved had no way of knowing it would be the last game they’d play for the foreseeable future. The Hawks (20-47) and Knicks (21-45) got their money’s worth in a 136-131 overtime affair, but when it ended, so too did their respective seasons for the time being.
The NBA suspended its season indefinitely Wednesday night following the announcement that Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19, leaving questions about the rest of the season and what steps the league will take moving forward. The news of Gobert’s diagnosis and the suspension of the season hit State Farm Arena midway through the second half, leaving fans and media began buzzing in astonishment and the game almost ancillary to the NBA’s larger developments. Gradually, the news trickled down to the court, where players and coaches were less surprised.
“I think everybody probably expected it,” Lloyd Pierce said. “When was really the biggest question. Obviously health is the main concern for everyone, and we’re not exempt from that. Tonight’s event, just understanding that someone in the league has caught the virus, I think we were trying to prevent that moment, and it happened anyways.”
Trae Young, who finished with 42 points and 11 assists in the game, found out from his father (who was sitting behind Atlanta’s bench) just before the fourth quarter began. The Knicks had Atlanta on the ropes at that point, and the news that they could be playing their final game of the season gave Young and the Hawks some extra life in the final period.
“We were down, and it was just shocking news,” Young said. “He wanted me to go out and have fun and just to finish out strong. So I tried to pull a big comeback.” He nearly did. Behind Young’s magnificent performance in the fourth, the Hawks outscored New York 40-22 to erase an 18-point deficit over the final 12 minutes to force overtime. Young scored 27 of those points, and assisted on nine more as the Hawks charged back into the contest.
John Collins added six points and six rebounds in the period (22 and 15 for the game), including a key putback layup with just over a minute remaining. Collins found out about the league-altering news at the foul line with 9:12 remaining in regulation from an assistant coach on the Knicks’ bench, and said that helped fuel him down the stretch. “What more motivation do I need to play harder?” he said. “Just go out there and give it my all, that extra effort. It almost took the wind, took the life out of me.”
Despite a dismal first half, Atlanta finished the game with a 115.2 offensive rating thanks to their explosive fourth quarter and impressive work on the offensive glass. The Knicks, however, outworked the Hawks in the first half and earned advantages in several key areas of the game. They shot better at the rim and from 3, attempted more free throws, and took better care of the ball. That Atlanta made the game competitive in spite of that it was a feat unto itself. The Knicks jumped out to an early lead in overtime, and the game’s momentum died as quickly as it had mounted.
After the game, Hawks owner Tony Ressler and GM Travis Schlenk addressed the team about what the next steps in this unprecedented process could be and what the players should do to stay healthy in the coming weeks. Gobert is the NBA’s patient zero for this pandemic, and the league was right to shut down its activity until it gets a better idea of what it’s facing. The Knicks played the Jazz on March 4, and given COVID-19’s ability to spread, it’s entirely possible that other players around the league have the virus. Atlanta’s players and coaches have neither chosen nor been mandated to get tested for coronavirus, and they have been instructed to lay low and avoid contact with other people as they await further instruction from the team. The rest of the league will likely follow suit.
“I think we’re all just trying to be educated about what we should do, what we can do, and what are the next steps, whenever the next steps occur,” Pierce said.
“I could care less about the game tonight. It’s more about people’s health,” said Young, who was teammates with Gobert in February’s All-Star game. “This sucks. It could have happened to anybody. But to be that person that everybody’s talking about and the reason why it’s cancelled, I feel for him.”
While Gobert and the rest of the league’s health is rightfully at the front of everyone’s mind, having the rest of the season so abruptly taken away is also undoubtedly frustrating. Atlanta is 5-6 in their last 11 games, and had begun playing its best basketball of the season around Young, Collins, and the rest of the team’s core. For that progress -- let alone the ability to compete in actual basketball games -- to be so suddenly halted without the promise of continuation can be difficult to accept, no matter how dire the circumstances.
“It’s really tough,” Collins said. “You put a lot of hard work and sweat -- I feel like every NBA player puts their life into this game -- and for it to be cut short, it hurts, especially early when you have so much unfinished business that you feel like you needed to handle. All the hard work that you put in to go out there on the court and prove and show people what you have, what you’re made of -- it’s something that we can't control.”
The uncertainty of the league’s immediate future also left questions about Vince Carter’s NBA future. Should the league eventually cancel the season, Wednesday will have been the 43-year-old’s last NBA game, and the State Farm Arena crowd was well aware of that fact as it chanted Carter’s name once the Knicks had the win in hand. The 22-year veteran checked in and fired a 3-pointer from the top of the key, which splashed gracefully through the net to put the final margin of defeat at five.
“It’s a weird way to say I’m calling it a career,” Carter said. “At least I scored my last basket.”
Carter doesn’t know if he’ll play the final 15 games of his career. He logged five points in 13 minutes on Wednesday -- a run-of-the-mill night for the league’s oldest head -- and received no fanfare leading up to or during the game. He simply played hard and kept the game simple. If that’s the final punctuation mark on his career, Carter will be perfectly happy. “Basketball has been good to me,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed each and every moment of it, good and bad. So if this is it, it’s all good.”
