Three Takeaways From The Atlanta Hawks Ugly Loss To New York In Game Five

It was another no-show night for the Atlanta Hawks and now their season is on the bring of being over.

After getting blasted off their home floor on Saturday night, the Hawks came into tonight hoping that they could take back the series lead against the New York Knicks, but the Knicks jumped on them from the start and gave Atlanta no chance to make things competitive. The series shifts back to Atlanta on Thursday and the Hawks will have to pull out all the stops to extend their season.

Here are the key takeaways for tonight's game.

1. Hawks offense no showed again

A lot of credit should be given to the Knicks defense for how they are playing in this series, but Atlanta is shooting the ball very poorly and having problems turning the ball over. The turnovers were not as bad of a problem tonight, but the Hawks were 13-32 shooting from three and had an offensive rating below 100.

That is not going to get it done.

The Hawks were only able to get six points out of CJ McCollum and the Knicks have done a great job of making sure that he does not get anything going on offense. After a great first two games of the series, McCollum has been shut down by the swarming Knicks defense. No starter had more than 20 points and the transition offense (only four fast break points) was eliminated by the Knicks.

New York has shut down what Atlanta does best and the Hawks have not found other answers.

2. Hawks bench was disastrous

Jonathan Kuminga scored 13 points on 4-10 shooting, but it was a terrible night from him and after being a catalyst in Atlanta's wins in game two and three, Kuminga has played as bad as you can when in a major role like he is.

Tony Bradley, Gabe Vincent, and Corey Kispert were the other three players off the bench. Vincent was a game worst -20 in his minutes, Kispert scored zero points in nearly 15 minutes of game action, and Bradley looked like he did not belong on the court.

Quin Snyder has got to find ways to get more from this bench beside the occasional Kuminga game. Will he play Mo Gueye, Zaccharie Risacher, or even Buddy Hield in the next game? He might be forced to.

3. Atlanta did not respond to game four loss

With a chance to take a 3-1 series lead at home, the Hawks fell flat and said that they Knicks were the more intense and physical team in game four. With a chance to correct those mistakes tonight, the Hawks just walked out there and played an even worse version of the game they played just three days ago.

Look, the Knicks are the more talented team and there is a reason that they are picked as one of the teams that can get to the NBA Finals from the Eastern Conference, but the Hawks have not played with any fire in the last two outings and look like the moment is too big for them. Is that the case?

Game six is going to bring all kinds of pressure and this Hawks team is going to have to respond a lot better than they did tonight.

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