Knicks-Hawks Game 2 analysis: How Julius Randle found his groove, the Derrick Rose effect, Obi Toppin’s great minutes

If an NBA playoff series is about adjustments and counters, the Knicks waited until halftime of Game 2 to make their big personnel play.

That’s when Tom Thibodeau finally decided to pull Elfrid Payton out of the rotation and go all-in on Derrick Rose, Alec Burks and Immanuel Quickley as his guard rotation. It was the headline-grabbing move for the game, one that the Knicks won, 101-92, to tie their first-round series with the Hawks and send it to Atlanta at 1-1.

But that wasn’t the only tweak the Knicks made. There were several. They changed their coverages on Trae Young from the very beginning, to middling success, and New York finally found a way to get Julius Randle going, which was no small part of their big comeback.

Randle struggled in Game 1 by missing 17 of 23 shots and then went the first half Wednesday without making a shot. He didn’t score until there were 4 minutes, 13 seconds remaining in the second quarter when he got to the line for two free throws. The Knicks were barely treading water while their star went missing.

Atlanta did a great job of taking away all of Randle’s strengths. He wasn’t a scorer or a passer. He wasn’t a driver or a shooter. He was just there. Through the first six quarters of the series, Randle scored 17 points, had five assists and gotten to the line just four times. Randle went for at least 17 and five in 37 games this season; now he barely got there in a game-and-a-half. And he’s missed 23 of 29 shots.

The Hawks overloaded Randle whenever he had the ball, taking away his driving lanes as Clint Capela or someone else loomed underneath to shadow him. There were usually a few sets of eyes on him during each possession. Just look at this last play of the first quarter and see how Atlanta zeroed on Randle, intent on taking everything away except tough midrange jumpers and off-the-dribble 3s over long defenders:

That’s what life was like for Randle. Lou Williams didn’t even follow Burks to the far corner on this play; he stayed to roam the strong side as a free safety.

The Knicks and Randle made their adjustments in the second half. The Knicks twinned Rose and Randle in a pick-and-roll in their first second-half possession, with Randle setting the screen and then popping out for a 3, which he hit.

But the big change for him seemed to come after his turnover with 6:55 left to go in the quarter. It was an ugly mistake. He threw it out of bounds from the other side of the free-throw line to the far sideline while being hounded by three Hawks. There was no intended receiver. It was hard not to read into the play, Randle was playing like Sam Darnold, and it looked like he was seeing ghosts. Thibodeau called a timeout.

That moment was a tipping point though. The stats reflect it:

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what changed, but it was clear Randle came out of the timeout a changed player, reverting to a much closer version of his All-Star self.

It seemed as if the Knicks and Randle made a more concerted effort to get him the ball on the move and in less static starting positions, which allowed him to burst into plays with momentum and use his size and speed to bust through the Hawks defense and as a battering ram against even Capela.

One place where Randle has not lagged is rebounding. He had 12 in the first game and had 12 more in Game 2. On Wednesday, he looked to push the pace off misses, grabbing rebounds then trying to attack off them, ostensibly to create problems before Atlanta’s defense could set in and sag around him.

Above, he took a high screen from Taj Gibson and got into a matchup with Capela. Randle knew he could win alone with no help defender and drove to the rim. Late in the fourth, Randle came off a screen for Rose (after a crushing shoulder to Bogdan Bogdanovic’s face that might get a look on the NBA’s Last Two Minutes report) and finished on the roll with some twinkle-toed dancing around Capela.

The passing lanes opened for him too when he started moving off the catch. In the third, Randle attacked Danilo Gallinari off a pass from Reggie Bullock, eventually finding Rose for a 3. With about five minutes to go in the quarter, he took a pass from RJ Barrett and immediately faked the shot instead of dallying around, blew by Gallinari and got fouled by Capela as he tried to dunk on him.

“Julius is terrific,” Thibodeau said. “His rebounding has been great. I thought as the game went on, he started to see things better. As is the case with Julius, in each case he’ll get better. He’s seen all these defenses before. Just be patient, keep moving, make the right plays, make the right reads, create good offense for us. He’s commanding a lot of attention, which is opening up other things for us.”

The usage was clear in the numbers. Randle had 11 iso possessions in Game 1 and eight in Game 2. He finished three possessions as the roll man in the screen game, all in the second half, after two in Game 1 and none in the first half. He had just one post-up possession after three in Game 1.

The changes worked, and although the final numbers were still below par for Randle this season, they were also evidence, perhaps, that he was finding himself again. His bully-ball offense still found success when he backed down Bogdanovic to feed Gibson for a dunk to give the Knicks a 98-91 lead, but Randle was able to mix up his repertoire.

“Just tried to make adjustments, tried to get in the paint and tried to get shots for myself and others,” he said. “Caught the ball in a little bit different areas. It was a little adjustment just trying to figure it out a little bit. But I still gotta be a lot better.”

• Capela was a force around the rim on defense. The Knicks hit just 7 of 17 shots with Capela as the nearest defender (41 percent), and he had five blocks. He made life particularly difficult for Rose, whom he blocked four times. New York is shooting just 55.9 percent from inside 5 feet in this series, the third-lowest of any playoff team. It wasn’t a strength during the regular season — the Knicks’ 58 percent there was the second-worst in the NBA — but it’s been exacerbated.

• With Randle sputtering early, the Knicks turned to Rose to save them, and he did. He scored 14 first-half points while finding ways to score. His jumper was failing him, so he attacked the basket. Rose got to the line for six free throws and got off five shots at the rim.

He has been the Knicks’ best offensive player this series, carrying the burden left behind by Randle. Thibodeau turned to him early, after pulling Payton 5:03 into the first, and let him play the final 18:57 of the half. Rose played almost 39 minutes, which is the most minutes for him in a playoff game since Game 5 against the Cavaliers in the 2015 Eastern Conference semifinals.

Rose was vigorous in Game 2 because he felt he hadn’t done enough Sunday and wanted to make amends.

“Last game we felt like we weren’t into them like we were supposed to,” he said. “I know personally I felt that way. Coming in, I wanted to play with intensity and just play as hard as I could. … I felt like I played sluggish last game. To get the win at the end after going through everything that we went through in the game, fighting and scratching and clawing to get there, fighting against a great young team.

“To get that far and play the way that we played and come back and get the lead and not only that but to win, it shows a lot. It shows fight.”

• Will Thibodeau play Payton again this series? It seems like hyperbole, but it seems unimaginable that the Knicks coach would use him again, let alone start him when he didn’t put him back into the game in the third Wednesday. And that coincided with New York’s best half of the series. If Thibodeau doesn’t start Payton, then what role is there for him after that? Payton seemed to hold onto his minutes out of inertia in Games 1 and 2 but Thibodeau broke that, so what’s next?

• The Knicks came out with a new plan to defend and stop Young. They switched their pick-and-roll coverages, getting aggressive with him early. Nerlens Noel tried to trap him on the Hawks’ fourth possession of the game before Capela could even set the screen; that led to a turnover as Young tried to pass it to Capela for a lob. The Knicks consistently sent two defenders at him, trying to get him to make quick decisions and pass the ball, which was a change from Game 1 when he had time and space to stay on the ball and get into the lane.

But there was only so much they could do. Young had 30 points and seven assists. He still made smart decisions, passing to the roller or manipulating defenders and still finding a way to kick out to shooters. Here, Noel is ready to pounce when he meets Young at the level of the screen.

https://t.co/YpAZkDycsI pic.twitter.com/7yQ95vkie7

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) May 26, 2021

But Young tricked Noel, waited for him to jump, dribbled around him and hit De’Andre Hunter for a corner 3.

Sometimes Young ignored the screen, as he did for his first 3, and instead took hard 3s and jumpers. He burned the Knicks with stepbacks and fadeaways. He hit two 30-foot 3s from the edge of the Knicks logo and four 3s altogether.

Most of all, the Knicks lucked out that Hawks coach Nate McMillan kept Young out for as long as he did in the fourth quarter as the Knicks went on a run. New York led by one after three quarters but was up, 88-78, when McMillan finally subbed Young back in with 8:34 to go.

“Trae is going to make him some shots,” Gibson said. “He’s an all-world talent. He’s a young fella with a whole bunch of talent. He’s phenomenal. We’re just trying to contain him. In the playoffs, every bucket is tough. He’s making some tough shots. We’re just trying to match it where at some times we get some stops.”

• Gibson was the Knicks’ low-key star Wednesday as he continues to amass a bigger and bigger role. He played 30 minutes as Noel dealt with an ankle injury, and New York was plus-23 in those minutes. He played strong defense at the center position and helped mitigate Young. He scored six points and grabbed four offensive rebounds and had three steals. His footwork and awareness for positioning underneath the basket helped him get open for dunks on feeds by Randle and Burks.

“The thing you can’t overlook is how well Taj played,” Thibodeau said. “Taj was a monster in there tonight.”

Afterward, Gibson was almost giddy about this whole experience. At 35, he’s playing in New York City, his hometown, with Thibodeau, his longtime coach, and Rose, his friend and longtime teammate across two other stops. He said he couldn’t think of the words to describe what it was like for him. Then he found them and so much more.

“It’s so surreal,” Gibson said. “When I talk to the young guys who wake up and they may not know where their path is going to lead them or where the game is going to take them, just try your heart. Don’t worry about what nobody is going to say because I sat years ago as a rookie, maybe my second year, I sat every day with Thibs after practice and we talked about the Knicks, we talked about the battles, we talked about how great it would be to play there one day.

“And then for it to come true. And then I’m playing with Derrick, who I’ve been playing with my whole career. And we have the same familiar faces. But now we’re in New York City, God doesn’t make any mistakes, man. You just got to follow your path. You just got to believe in yourself. Stay the course. The course is always going to be rocky, but you just got to stay the course and truly believe it because this is some magical stuff right now.

“I don’t know how to explain it. Every day, I don’t take anything for granted, but every day I come in it’s just surreal, and you gotta pinch yourself because you’re playing in the Garden. It’s one of the toughest places to play, but it’s one of the beautiful-est places to play when you’re right. We’re trying to do some special things here, and right now we’re laying the groundwork for it. It’s an awesome feeling.”

• The expectation was that Thibodeau would increase Randle’s minutes in the playoffs, tightening his rotation and leaning on his best player. Instead, Randle has averaged about a minute per game less than his regular-season average. That’s because Obi Toppin has given the Knicks strong minutes so far. The Knicks outscored opponents by 0.3 points-per-1oo-possessions when he was on the floor compared to off it in the regular season, but it’s up to 18.1 in the playoffs.

Toppin gave the Knicks a lot, especially in the third. He finished with eight points, three rebounds, a block, a 3 and four free throws. But that third quarter was his best moment. In one sequence he blocked Kevin Huerter then got behind the Hawks in transition and finished off a lob from Burks. He had the Garden chanting his name.

• The Hawks had a very rough final five minutes. The game was tied at 91 when that segment began and ended, obviously, with a 101-92 Knicks win. Do the math. The Hawks missed their final eight shots. The Knicks defended some of them well, but they got lucky too. Atlanta flubbed two lobs, missed a layup and two open 3s, and Young decided to shoot away from 33 feet out with 19 seconds left on the shot clock.

That’s how it goes sometimes. Good defenses get fortunate too.

Hunter missed all three of those in the final three minutes. He will probably want to delete this game from his memory. The wing 3 was just a wide-open look. He received a low pass from Young in the corner, having to bend down to catch it and then get it to shooting pocket, but still a good look. The pass from Young on the lob out of the sidelines out of bounds play was short, but Hunter adjusted and still had an open layup.

Bogdanovic missed a catch-and-shoot 3 and another wing 3 where he had to get a shot off with Gibson barreling toward him on a closeout that quickly ate up his airspace.

But a key part of that closing run was that Young took just one shot in those final five minutes. The Knicks made him pass the ball out, and other Hawks had to beat them.

“I thought our shot selection — we were playing that first option against this defense,” McMillan said. “They turned up their defense in the third and fourth quarter. We were one pass and one shot. I thought it was a lot of settling on the perimeter as opposed to attacking.”

• Quickley had a quiet game, mostly. He shot just 2 of 9 from the floor and had four points, though he was a part of the bench unit that spurred that big run in the fourth quarter. He hasn’t had the dramatic scoring output that he had at times in the regular season. But he’s been lively on the ball sometimes. He had one pick-and-roll in the fourth that resulted in a bucket. He got to the rim with his eyes and his footwork, winning the play before he took a dribble. Watch as he receives the screen and takes a jab step to his right, which makes Capela step that same way and puts him too far out of position to recover in time when Quickley goes left into the lane for the floater. Heady stuff from the rookie.

Related Reading

Jeff Schultz: As series heads to Atlanta, athletes need to be better protected
Matt Fortuna: There’s meaningful basketball across New York again
Seth Partnow: Breaking down early playoff analytical trends

(Photo: Elsa / pool photo via USA Today)