About 10 months after his Broadway Bow, Trae Young has a chance to bury the Knicks again.
It’s not the same magnitude of the playoffs, but a defeat to the Hawks on Tuesday sends the Knicks into a hole so deep the play-in tournament can be tossed into the Hudson River. As it stands, the Knicks (30-41) are five games behind the Hawks (35-36) for the final play-in spot with 11 to play.
A defeat Tuesday would make it a six-game deficit with 10 games remaining, while also clinching the Knicks a losing record after last season’s surge to the fourth seed. (The Knicks could also mathematically overtake Charlotte or the Nets for a play-in spot, but their clearest path, albeit unlikely, is beating out Atlanta).
Young hasn’t played at the Garden since morphing into the supervillain during last year’s playoffs, when the NYC crowd serenaded the point guard with “F--- Trae Young” chants. He was in COVID-19 protocols for the Hawks’ first appearance this season on Christmas, which ended with a Knicks win and a Kemba Walker triple-double.
Young has since flashed his propensity for thrilling performances, scoring over 40 points on six occasions since New Year’s Day. He’s fifth in the NBA in points per game, trailing only Joel Embiid, LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic.
Young embraced his role as resident NYC villain, even appearing at a WWE show in September to choke Rey Mysterio and get booed by the MSG crowd.
But the rivalry lost some juice because the Knicks and the Hawks have both disappointed this season. Atlanta, which made a shocking run to the Eastern Conference finals last year, is struggling just to reach .500. It fell to the Pelicans on Sunday and is missing power forward John Collins, who is out indefinitely with a plantar fasciitis tear. Kevin Knox, who was acquired from the Knicks in a January trade for Cam Reddish, hasn’t cracked the rotation, playing sparingly with the Hawks as he did under Tom Thibodeau.
The Knicks, meanwhile, are plunging toward another crossroads summer, without cap space and without a clear direction. But they have the opportunity Tuesday to exact a small measure of revenge against the fanbase’s No. 1 enemy, and maybe avoid Young getting the last laugh at MSG for a second straight year.
