Final Score: Knicks 111, Hawks 106

What a lovely game! The Knicks had their aggravating defensive stretches and the Hawks shoveled plenty of their own grave dirt with lazy passing and missed open shots but forget all that! The Knicks won a proper game! They scored more points than their opponent withOUT making us want to spray battery acid in our eyes in the process!

New York's game resembled something from last year. They made up for silly switching and pick-and-roll breakdowns (which led to open jumpers) by forcing a ton of turnovers (27). Trapping and over-playing passing lanes DOES work sometimes if you do it right and your opponent is sleepy enough. All those turnovers and some great offensive rebounding efforts bought the Knicks sooooo many extra shots. And they hit them! Andrea Bargnani was devastating in the pick-and-pop with Pablo Prigioni, and Pablo got some long buckets of his own when the Hawks sucked inward. Carmelo Anthony--  in a lot of small and spread-out lineups-- shot excellently even after an apparent hamstring tweak, exploding in the fourth quarter to assure the Knicks wouldn't blow their biggest lead. Tim Hardaway Jr. made up for quiet and/or stinky nights from Iman Shumpert and J.R. Smith by scoring 12 points off the bench.

GUYS I AM TYPING THIS BEFORE THE GAME IS OVER BECAUSE I KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO WIN THIS IS SO GREAT AND DIFFERENT AND I CHERISH IT SO MUCH. I almost feel bad about the incredibly gloomy and snarky podcast I recorded with netw3rk earlier today.

Oh jeez the garbage bros almost blew it.

Recap tomorrow! Podcast at some point soon, too!