Knicks' Jalen Brunson scores 28 points to key Game 1 win over Hawks

It had been eight days since Jalen Brunson had been seen in a game, and no one really knows what happens behind closed doors at the Knicks’ training facility, how many shots he gets up, how many hours he’s in the gym.

But what was revealed when the Knicks took the court Saturday night for the start of what they hope is a long postseason run was that the playoff version of Brunson had been activated.

He scored 19 of his 28 points in the first quarter in leading the Knicks to a 113-102 win over the Atlanta Hawks at the Garden in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.

Brunson — who scored the most first-quarter points in Knicks postseason history — shot 1-for-11 after that first quarter, but he’d already set the tone, established the lead and alerted the Hawks that Dyson Daniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and any of the other defenders they threw at him would not keep him from orchestrating the offense.

Once Brunson started it, his teammates picked him up, with all five starters scoring in double-figures. Finally, Karl-Anthony Towns turned from facilitator to scorer, hitting all four of his shots and recording 11 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter as he played in front of his father, Karl Sr., who was back in the front row for the first time in weeks after undergoing a procedure to fix a coronary blockage.

The Knicks — who took a 19-point lead with 4:36 left — got the start they needed courtesy of Brunson, but what might have been most important was that when he went cold, they got what they needed up and down the roster and still got the win.

“Yeah, it’s really important,” Brunson said. “You never know what’s going to happen. There’s going to be highs and lows of a season, highs and lows of a game, and to be able to fight through and be able to impact is going to be very important — especially at this point in the season. So no matter what, we got to be positive and get through anything.”

“We got lifts from different guys at different times, which is what the playoffs is about,” coach Mike Brown said. “Everybody kind of stepped up and contributed. OG [Anunoby] hit some big shots. Josh [Hart], 14 rebounds — awesome — and a double-double. KAT, he hit some timely buckets for us. Mikal [Bridges] was great defensively. Jalen was good for us, especially early on when we needed to get going a little bit.”

The Knicks were not at their best in drawing first blood in the series, but they were just what was expected, an experienced team on a mission, while the Hawks looked like a young team making its first postseason appearance.

The Knicks seemed to pick up offensively where they left off in Atlanta, utilizing Towns as a hub outside the three-point line with Brunson running off screens around him and Towns repeatedly finding him cutting into the lane.

Brunson connected on his first six shots, scoring 15 points in the first 5:21. By the end of the first quarter, he was up to 19 points and 8-for-11 shooting.

While Towns may have served as the centerpiece for the action, he did little himself through the first three quarters, shooting 2-for-9. But after entering the game in the fourth quarter, he drained a three-pointer and connected on a driving layup, landing on the ground and pointing back toward his teammates. He drew a foul on the play on Onyeka Okongwu for a conventional three-point play and a 101-87 lead.

A couple things,” Brown said. “First one is Jalen had the most shots in the first half, and I think KAT was next with six. He was just 1-for-6 from the floor at the time, and I think two other people also had six shots. So there weren’t a high-volume amount of shots in that first half. But more than anything else, the ball went in for him in the second half.

“But then in the first half, he facilitated a lot. We played through him. He made some great passes for some easy buckets. And so we’re just trying to mix it up for him. We want to put him in pick-and-roll situations so he can pick-and-pop and shoot the ball or take the ball off the dribble. And then we also want to put him at the elbow so he can play-make for us, because we feel like we move very well without the basketball.

“So although he might not have had 10 shots in the first half, like I said, he was close with the second-most or tied for second-most. They just didn’t go in in that first half, but he facilitated some easy buckets for us, and also he’s got to be guarded closely, so he created space for us at the top of the floor.”

Said Towns, “We’ve got an amazing team — not only starting five, but everybody on the team can impact winning and go out there and do an amazing job. Just us continue to trust each other and us going out as a team and winning as a team is the most important thing.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.