Five observations from the Hawks’ 102-98 win over the Knicks Wednesday.
1. The Knicks lost Carmelo Anthony to a Flagrant Foul 2 on Thabo Sefolosha with 3:08 remaining in the second quarter. While fighting for a rebound, Anthony grabbed Sefolosha around the throat with one hand and swung his other hand that connected with Sefolosha.
“He punched me,” Sefolosha said. “That was a fist right in my face.”
Sefolosha said he didn’t feel the hand on his throat and he didn’t care to elaborate on the words exchanged between the two after the incident.
“I don’t care about all of that,” Sefolosha said.
Anthony refused to speak to reporters following the game.
2. The flagrant foul was almost never called. Initially, the officials called double technical fouls on the players. Play was about to continue after the teams were finally separated. Then stepped in Kent Bazemore, the Hawks captain for the game.
“I saw Coach Bud wanted a review,” Bazemore said. “I’m a captain at jump ball. (The referees) only want to talk to me. I went over there and said ‘Let’s take a look at it.’ The chaos around it, there was like two minutes. They figured they might as well look at it.”
The fact that the officials did review the play, upgraded the foul against Anthony and ejected the Knicks star was important to Sefolosha.
“I’m glad the referees looked back at it and made the right call,” Sefolosha said. “That would have been terrible. I’m glad they took another look at it.”
3. With the loss of Anthony, the Hawks could focus their defensive effort on Derrick Rose and Kristaps Porzingis. That's what they did. Rose finished with 26 points but had a costly turnover near the end of overtime. Porzingis finished with 24 points.
“We felt like we could get more aggressive on Rose, more aggressive on Porzingis,” Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Carmelo is obviously a huge part of their team.
Anthony left with 10 points in his 15 minutes of play.
The Hawks started the game by switching on the 1-4 pick-and-roll between Rose and Porzingis. They continued the strategy for the most part but a lot of the pressure was off without Anthony in the mix offensively for the Knicks. It also freed up Sefolosha, who was the primary defender on Anthony before the incident.
On guarding the much-bigger Porzingiz, Paul Millsap said: “Just crowd his space. Limit his touches. He’s 7-3 so when he gets the ball, he’s tough.”
4. The Hawks scored 17 points in overtime. They scored just 20 in both the third and fourth quarters. Kyle Korver and Sefolosha hit big 3-pointers in the extra period. The Hawks were 2 of 3 from long distance in overtime after going 5 of 24 in regulation. Both Korver and Sefolosha shrugged off the baskets that helped the Hawks build a six-point lead at one point in the period basically saying they were open and made the shot.
5. The game nearly went into double overtime. The Hawks held a three-point lead, 100-97, with three seconds remaining after a pair of Dennis Schroder free throws with six seconds left. With 3.6 seconds left, Sefolosha fouled Porzingis on a 3-point attempt. The big man, a 79 percent free-throw shooter, missed the first attempt. After making the second, he intentionally missed the third but the Knicks were called for a lane violation. Porzingis had made five of his previous six free throws.
Millsap iced the game with pair of free throw for the final margin.
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