Julius Randle scored 44, RJ Barrett bounced back, and the Knicks beat the Hawks at home on Monday night for their third straight win.

Lately, it seems that any time the New York Knicks face off against the Atlanta Hawks, craziness ensues. In 2017, there was a four-overtime thriller in Atlanta in which Carmelo Anthony dropped 45 before fouling out in a Knicks loss. Last year, the Knicks dropped 147 in regulation at the Garden on Trae Young’s not-so-lovable band of losers, before splitting a pair of rather epic overtime games in Atlanta, including the final game of the season before the NBA (and world) went into lockdown. So if you were expecting something routine, you came to the wrong place.

Things ratcheted up right after the tip as Julius Randle came out Steph Curry hot. He dropped 17 in the first quarter, complete with three triples, including a motherfucking step-back off the dribble. Yes, in the year 2021, these are things that Julius does. With the likes of RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and Reggie Bullock chipping in early, the Knicks had an 11-point lead after the first frame. 

After another IQ trey off of a gorgeous feed from Derrick Rose, to open the lead up to 14 at the start of the second, Taj Gibson blocked John Collins in the paint, triggering a fast break for Rose that seemed destined to send the Hawks into an early tailspin. 

Rather than feeding a red-hot Quickley, who was wide open in the corner for a transition three, Rose attempted an ill-advised lob to Obi Toppin that was never close to connecting. Turnover. It seemed innocuous in the moment, but on Atlanta’s ensuing possession, Danilo Gallinari nailed a three to cut the deficit back down to 11, and from there, the Hawks seemed to find their footing in the game.

With a whistle-happy ref crew only too happy to indulge Trae’s crack addiction for foul baiting over shot-making, the Hawks steadily cut into the Knicks’ lead as New York lost its offensive verve. By the end of a drawn-out free throw shooting exhibition, the ’Bockers clung to a slender 66-63 halftime lead.

Rather than gathering themselves at halftime, New York came out utterly flat, failing to score until the 8:24 mark in the third, and eventually falling down 81-74 with a little over six minutes left. The Hawks were slicing and dicing their way into the paint as Nerlens Noel looked utterly lost in his attempts to provide the same type of rim protection and paint deterrence as the injured Mitchell Robinson. After he fumbled away a pass Randle on the other end, some of us had seen enough.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. 

Noel helped key the Knicks back into the game with an incredible sequence, starting off with an elbow jumper off of a Barrett dime. On the following possession, he poked the ball away from Young, keying a Knicks fast break and a Barrett and-1. All hell then broke loose, as Noel stuffed the everliving shit out of Kevin Huerter at the rim, but Barrett failed to capitalize on the break, leading to a break for the Hawks, which, again, was stopped by Noel blocking Skylar Mays at the rim. This time Elfrid Payton cashed in, and just like that, the Knicks were back in the game.

The two teams seesawed from there until midway through the fourth, with the Knicks clinging on to a 104-102 lead with just over five minutes left. From there, they just had too much firepower for the Hawks. RJ Barrett canned a couple of corner triples courtesy of sensational passes from Quickley and Randle. Randle canned a corner triple of his own and sealed the game with a ridiculous baseline fade that extended the lead to eight with 1:36 left.

A Quickley-to-Noel lob and a Noel putback put a deserved gloss on the final score as the Knicks ran out to a 123-112 victory. Game, set, match.

Notes

• There’s so much to be said about the transformation Julius Randle has made (and continues to make) on a seemingly nightly basis. The improved decision-making, post-up game, and mid-range mastery has been evident all season. His 3-point percentage has been solid throughout the year, but the diet of threes he was taking didn’t constitute much more than open catch-and-shoot threes on relatively low volume. Lately, however, the volume is going up, including 13 attempts against the Hawks, and so is the difficulty of shots, with a number of off-the-dribble and/or in-your-face, hotly-contested 3-point attempts, the type usually reserved for true star shot creators, littered throughout on a nightly basis. Notably, his efficiency has maintained through it all. He’s now up to 40.8% from long range on 4.4 attempts per game. We’re getting to the point where teams are going to need to honor that shot. Pop quiz, hot shot: How do you stop a bruising freight train of a player that has the skills and wherewithal to punish you from the perimeter too?

• If the answer is, “send help,” good luck with that. We’ve seen throughout the season teams send double and triple teams at Randle hoping to prey on the now-outdated scouting report that Julius would undoubtedly spin into the help and dribble the ball off his dick. Saving that, he’d surely throw up some junk shot over multiple defenders rather than daring to trust his teammates to make the open shot. The problem is, none of this is remotely applicable anymore. Sure, you may be able to pick off some wild crosscourt passes you can bait him into, but you’re also going to find out that there’s pain to be had when he beats those traps and finds the shooters, which he does now with remarkable consistency, even in crunch time. You can play the odds, but know that the house wins more than not, and Julius is the fucking house.

• I could go on about Julius, but I pretty much have in every other recap I’ve done, and after every game, and on every podcast. He’s averaging 23.1 points, 11.0 rebounds, and 5.6 assists on 47.6/40.6/80.2 splits. He’s hitting clutch shot after clutch shot whenever the team desperately needs a bucket, and for a team this deficient offensively, they need those buckets quite often. In a seesaw game like tonight, where the game threatened to get out of the Knicks’ reach at various points, those buckets mean more — and this dude dropped 44 on 22 shots, including seven triples, and had nine rebounds and five assists for good measure. The man is an All-Star, and if you don’t agree then you can go fuck yourself. All due respect.

• Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way. Elfrid Payton played fine. Reggie Bullock played OK, despite some extremely stupid shooting fouls. You’re not here for this and neither am I. Good talk.

• Nerlens Noel, man. I have serious doubt about how he’ll hold up consistently during Mitch’s absence, and for the first 2.5 quarters of this game all of my worst fears were on display. He picked up three quick fouls in eight first half minutes, two of which were of the extremely stupid reach-in variety. He was getting pulverized on the glass by Capela, both unable to locate the ball to out-jump his counterpart or effectively box out. Defensively, he seemed unsure of what to do in pick-and-roll, not doing enough to contain penetration, but also not serving as much of a deterrent in the paint. But there were 1.5 quarters left to play, and boy, did he play them. I already outlined the insane sequence he had above just when it seemed the Knicks might lose their grip on affairs, but he was just immaculate down the stretch too. He kept balls alive on the offensive glass, and snuffed out more than one lob attempt from Trae to Capela. I still have my doubts, but those are for another day. Let’s live in this one, because it’s beautiful, and in it Noel was as key as anybody to a thrilling Knicks victory.

• Immanuel Quickley is an absolute baller and I love him. He has the utmost confidence in himself. He pulls from all kinds of distances including a bonkers, Lillard-esque logo pull today, not for the first time this season. I’m not sure if those are the shots that makes Thibs love him or make him crave for the erstwhile, yet boringly shitty stylings of Elf, but I do know that whatever his natural instincts are, Thibs knows how valuable the gravity he already commands is to winning games in crunch time. Even if he doesn’t always err on the side of the kid, he does often enough to know that. It’s not just his shooting ability, but also that he can leverage it into creating for others, as he did with his crosscourt pass, punishing a helpless score of scrambling Hawks defenders, and finding RJ open for a corner triple late in the fourth . This kid is already so good and he’s only going to get better.

• RJ Barrett had a rough stretch of performances preceding tonight’s game. He missed a shot at the rim in Miami last week that would have sent the game to overtime, and couldn’t seem to find a rhythm in the back-to-back against Washington or Houston. Just when doubts were starting to seep back in, Barrett got his groove back, scoring 21 on 14 shots, grabbing seven boards, and dishing three dimes. He made difficult rotations all night against a Hawks team that makes you cover the court with a constant barrage of pick-and-rolls which ignite sequences of drive-and-kick. Most importantly, when the Knicks needed buckets in the fourth, he came up trumps, with two nothing-but-twine splashes from the corner down the stretch. This was after he completely air-balled a free throw line pull-up in his first action of the period. He’s not the most aesthetically pleasing hooper to have ever hooped, but the kid wants it too bad, and contributes in so many ways to not believe he’s going to turn it around. Nights like tonight give us fans hope, and they’re also the type of all-around wing performances you can see being fundamental to a true contender. All in good time.

• Derrick Rose didn’t have his best offensive showing, although he did throw some gorgeous dimes, and his willingness to let Randle and Quickley do their thing late in the game after he got the team organized was great to see. However, his defense — I know — in the second half against Trae Young was spectacular. I have no idea how many Trae had on Rose in the second half. I can’t imagine it was many, as his foul-baiting black magic on the refs wore off and he seemed to look unsure of himself throughout the fourth. Rose swatting him twice may have impacted that. It’s been just four games since he joined, but the early signs have been good on both ends of the floor.

• Speaking of Trae Young, do people honestly enjoy watching him play the game of basketball? James Harden was bad enough for me, and Luka Doncic is slowly becoming more annoying than him, but Trae takes the cake, man. Some of the shit he gets rewarded for is an embarrassment to the game, and to professional sports. Of course, it’d be wrong to blame him solely. His enablers — the referees and, presumably, the league itself — rewarding that type of foul-seeking leads to an awful product. The second quarter of tonight’s game was nothing more than a witch hunt for contact, and too easily the officials went along with it. It’s garbage, and simply needs to be legislated out of the game. If that means Quickley doesn’t get rewarded for his foul baiting antics anymore, so be it. That type of shit isn’t in the spirit of the game.

• The Hawks spent more than any other team this past offseason, and they’re currently running Skylar Mays and Solomon Hill as parts of the rotation. Not a knock on those guys, as they actually performed just fine tonight, but the depth they paid for isn’t giving them a great return on investment. Injuries have been a problem with Bojan Bogdanovic, Rajon Rondo, and Kris Dunn not suited up, but when they do, does that mean guys like Huerter and Cam Reddish move to the periphery? Where does Onyeka Okongwu, their lottery pick this season, fit? What are they going to do with John Collins? I know it’s a bit rich for a fan of a Knicks team that doesn’t play its lottery pick (we’ll get to him shortly) very much, and has Kevin Knox and Frank Ntilikina, two past lottery picks, out of the rotation, to ask such questions about another team; but the Knicks seem happier and more organized than what looks like an increasingly unharmonious and disenchanted Atlanta team.

• I’ll just leave this here, in all of its glory, for you to bask in

• Obi Toppin didn’t close out close enough to shooters on multiple occasions in this game. The final straw for Tom Thibodeau was when he didn’t get tight enough to Gallinari, and the Rooster promptly splashed a three in his face. He wasn’t actually bad tonight, and it was nice to see him splash a corner triple, but those are the nuances that will make or break his defense, and he needs to improve there.

• Speaking of Thibs, sure was nice to see him close with that Rose/IQ/RJ/Randle/Noel group. That unit doesn’t have the greatest spacing in the world, but they have four dudes who defenses need to account for, and who have the gravity to challenge opponents on and off the ball in a variety of ways. That was on full display where the Knicks got quality shot after quality shot in crunch time. I can get used to that.

• Absolutely delightful set from Thibs to start the fourth to get a wide open Quickley triple. More of that, please.

• Say what you want about Thibs running guys into the ground, but aside from Randle, the minutes haven’t been Herculean asks. He’s been very careful with Rose too, so far.

• Teams in the NBA are obsessed with talking about culture. Our very own Knicks have told us for years that establishing one was fundamental, and yet for years it hasn’t taken hold. Maybe briefly, during the 54-win season, there was one, but that wasn’t built on anything sustainable given the AARP nature of the roster. This, right here, right now, feels close to whatever culture is supposed to mean. I see it when RJ Barrett, who very clearly wasn’t fond of Randle last season, fanboys over his All-Star candidacy endlessly. I hear it when Obi Toppin and Immanuel Quickley gush over how much Rose has already helped them on and off the court. I sense it, viscerally, when Thibs rips off his mask to comfortably spew an atomic ton of profanity at the refs, his players, or whichever pour soul is unfortunate enough to be in closest proximity. I smile at it when I see Theo Pinson dancing like a lunatic after any and every made bucket. Whatever it is, I can’t tell you, but if you’ve watched the Knicks as often as I have over the years and compare it to this team, which is still very much a work in progress as far as building a contender, you know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about. Soak it in.

The Knicks get a night off before facing off against a depleted, but feisty Orlando Magic squad, led by the ever-resilient Nikola Vucevic. Fortunately for us, the Knicks have a star big man of their own to lead them. Quoth Julius Randle: “this dude here”. Here's looking to you big guy. The dude, right here, making this franchise respectable again.