As banged-up as the Knicks have been for weeks — and forced to play without Jalen Brunson for all but the opening minute Sunday in Cleveland over their past two games — they also have faced two consecutive opponents who also were missing their best player.
One game after they were able to gut out a key victory with Donovan Mitchell sidelined for the Cavaliers, the Knicks fell behind by 22 in the first half and were unable to do the same with nemesis Trae Young out for the Hawks in a 116-100 loss Tuesday night at the Garden.
“The margin for error is small with all the guys we have out. We just put all the guys we have out there,” Josh Hart said after the Knicks lost for the eighth time in 11 games. “We can’t have those slow starts and expend so much energy trying to get back into the game. … And then having that fourth [quarter]. We just gotta find a way.”
Donte DiVincenzo scored 21 points but shot just 7-for-23 from the field — while missing 12 of 17 from 3-point range — for the Knicks, who slipped into a tie with Orlando for the fourth and fifth playoff positions in the Eastern Conference entering a home game Friday against the Magic.
The Knicks (36-26) shot 16-for-52 overall from beyond the arc, their most misses from long distance in a game this season.
“It wasn’t the game plan. … But when you go back and look at it, the whole first half we are getting good looks,” DiVincenzo said. “Everybody was getting open looks and they weren’t falling. And then when they started to fall everybody started to get confidence and that’s when we started to make those runs.”
Young was out for the Hawks after undergoing hand surgery last week, but Brunson didn’t play due to a left-knee contusion suffered early in the Knicks’ victory Sunday over the Cavs.
Newly signed guard Shake Milton did not play for the Knicks, with Tom Thibodeau sticking with an eight-man rotation and leaning heavily on Miles McBride, who has played 47 and 45 minutes the past two games in Brunson’s absence.
Jalen Johnson netted nine of his game-high 26 points during a 24-10 run to open the game for the Hawks (27-34), and DiVincenzo finished the first quarter just 1-for-9 from long distance as the Knicks trailed 33-15 through one.
“At the start of the game, I don’t think I took a shot that wasn’t a normal shot for me,” DiVincenzo said. “A couple of them toilet-bowled out and a couple of them felt good, but were in and out. But everybody told me to keep shooting.”
McBride got subbed out late in the first quarter, and Alec Burks (11 points) replaced him — rather than the newly signed Milton.
Burks scored five points early in the second, including one from long range, but the Hawks extended their cushion to 22.
The Knicks closed within 10 with under two minutes remaining in the half on DiVincenzo’s second made trey, and additional 3-pointers by McBride and Bojan Bogdanovic (19 points) completed a 13-2 surge that reinvigorated the home crowd.
The Hawks led 61-50 at intermission, but the Knicks tightened up defensively in the third and got within seven on Hart’s 3-pointer — his first points of the game — and McBride’s baseline dunk moments after he’d drawn a charge by Bruno Fernando.
Hart later found Bogdanovic cutting to the hoop for an and-1, and then he drove the length of the court to finally forge a 76-76 tie with 1:47 remaining.
But Atlanta’s Bogdan Bogdanovic drilled a 3-pointer from the left side in the final seconds to complete a 7-2 closeout to the quarter to put the Hawks up 83-78 entering the final period.
The Knicks trailed by nine early in the fourth, before Hart (14 points) nailed consecutive 3-pointers for a four-point game with 6:27 to go, but they were outscored 21-9 the rest of the way.
“We got in a big hole, but were down by five going into the fourth,” Thibodeau said. “Created good shots, and I thought a lot of the 3s were wide open. We gotta make ’em.”
