Game one's heartbreaking loss to the Hawks only reinforced what the Knicks already knew: they have to find a way to contain Trae Young if they want to survive the first round.
Young poured in a game-high 32 points, including the game-winner on a running floater, to go along with his 10 assists to silence a once raucous MSG crowd.
RJ Barrett kept it simple when assessing Young's performance after the game, but his takeaway was still a fitting one.
"He's a good player," Barrett said. "And good players make plays."
Young particularly made plays out of the pick and roll, torching the Knicks by creating 40 points of offense when running the play, which New York struggled to find an answer for all night. But that assignment, to contain the pick and roll and the easy scoring chances Young can create out of it, will likely be a major factor in determining how the Knicks will fare the rest of this series.
"He's a great player," Tom Thibodeau said. "You're going to look at a lot of pick and rolls over the course of the game. Some we defended well, some we didn't defend as well as we would have liked."
The Knicks did a better job of limiting Young in the first half, holding the dynamic point guard to 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting from the floor. But the defense was only able to contain him for so long, as Young dropped 13 points in the fourth quarter, nine of them coming from the free throw line, while hitting three of his four attempts from the field.
Young's resurgence in the fourth quarter helped wipe away a seven-point lead for the Knicks, who had no answer for Young down the stretch, all the way through the final possession.
"He's always gonna be a tough cover," Derrick Rose said. "His IQ of the game, how his teammates believe in him, he's always gonna be a tough cover."
The Knicks challenge coming into game two will be how to slow down Young as much as possible without leaving shooters like Bogdan Bogdonavich and John Collins wide open for 3-pointers. With two nights in between game one and game two, Thibodeau has time to reassess the team's defensive scheme, but it looks like it needs to change if the Knicks are to win this series.
"He's a great player," Thibodeau said. "We'll take a look at the film. But you're not gonna be able to stay with a steady diet of anything. Obviously, we have to do a better job."
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