A sweet Hawks season ends on a sour note with a 51-point playoff blowout by Knicks

ATLANTA (AP) — Two playoff wins turned out to be the ceiling for an Atlanta Hawks team that underwent a midseason roster overhaul and exceeded expectations to earn its first outright playoff berth since 2021.

Oddsmakers would call that overachieving, but the nearly 18,000 in attendance at State Farm Arena on Thursday night would find it hard to agree as the Knicks led by as many as 61 points in a stunning 140-89 loss, tied for the sixth-largest margin in NBA playoff history.

Just one week after the Hawks completed an improbable comeback to beat the Knicks 109-108 and take a 2-1 series lead, that same Atlanta team looked like a shell of itself. And New York came back with a vengeance to put an exclamation point on a 4-2 series win.

“Give credit to the Knicks, whether it's experience or what you attribute it to, I thought their physicality — they made it hard for us,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said after the game. “Even as the series progressed, you can see what a really good team they are and why they're a contender. We didn't have an answer for that tonight.”

As the series wore on, the Hawks found fewer and fewer answers against a Knicks core of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart. Quality shots were hard to come by on offense, and defensively, they were caught in a no-win choice between slowing Towns or Brunson.

The Knicks had the advantage in what Atlanta lacked: continuity, with three of their starting five — Brunson, Hart and Bridges — having experience together dating to their college days at Villanova.

The Hawks, meanwhile, relied on a group of newcomers who rallied around a joint cause to lead Atlanta to a pleasantly surprising spring.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a new arrival who had his hand in the turnaround, wasn't interested in a participation trophy. Not after he shot 3 for 8 overall, 1 for 4 from 3-point range and had five turnovers.

“Disgusting," Alexander-Walker said, reflecting on his stats. “The way we lost was, I think, at no point in time at all this season were we that bad. But we were tonight."

Alexander-Walker was selected the NBA’s Most Improved Player after more than doubling his scoring average. It marked the second straight year a Hawks player won the award, underscoring the franchise’s commitment to developing young talent.

Next to Alexander-Walker on nearly every stat sheet was first-time NBA All-Star Jalen Johnson, who topped the Hawks in points (22.5), rebounds (10.3) and assists (7.9) in the regular season.

A breakout season ended on a sour note for Johnson, who was largely minimized during Atlanta's playoff run.

“This is a big learning experience, not only for myself, but just everybody in general. And I’m going to take a lot from this and continue to get better from it," the 6-foot-8 forward said. "We’re growing. We’re going to grow from this. We’re going to definitely be better from it.”

Johnson's message is what Snyder hopes for the young group: Feel the sting, but don't let it last too long.

“Right now, you’re trying to process a really tough night, and also keep in the back of your mind that these guys had a really good season,” Snyder said. “It’s easy, you know, for all of us in that locker room to forget that, particularly in the moment because of tonight, but hopefully, you know, we can do both.”

“You can’t help but have it knock you back,” he added. “That said, sometimes the most difficult things to handle in life are the things that you can use to drive you in whatever way, shape or form that comes.”

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Atlanta Hawks forward Jalen Johnson (1) walks off the court during the first half of Game 4 in a first-round NBA playoffs basketball series against the New York Knicks Saturday, April 25, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson (23) and Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels (5) fight in the first half during Game 6 in a first-round NBA basketball playoffs series Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Atlanta Hawks guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker (7) reacts during the second half of Game 4 in a first-round NBA playoffs basketball series against the New York Knicks Saturday, April 25, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Atlanta Hawks forward Jalen Johnson (1) looks on after Game 6 in a first-round NBA basketball playoffs series against the New York Knicks Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Tuesday its latest missile tests involved a new weapons system of “great significance,” with photos indicating it launched a missile previously described as hypersonic.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the weapon’s development would strengthen the country’s war readiness and give its enemies an “incurable headache,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. He did not describe what the weapon was.

Kim observed Sunday’s tests with his teenage daughter, widely seen as a potential successor.

South Korea’s military detected North Korea firing two short-range missiles three hours apart from the eastern coastal Wonsan area Sunday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles flew about 450 and 600 kilometers (280 miles and 370 miles) toward the sea, while Japan’s military said they landed in waters outside the country’s exclusive economic zone.

The launches extended a recent run in military displays, including live-fire exercises and the commissioning of a new warship, as Kim continues to flaunt his growing nuclear program despite U.S. calls to revive diplomacy.

Following years of intensified testing, Kim now has an extensive arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles, including long-range weapons potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and shorter-range systems designed to overwhelm missile defenses in South Korea and Japan.

Among the weapons North Korea has tested in recent years are various missile systems fitted with purported hypersonic weapons, which are designed to travel at more than five times the speed of sound. Their speed and maneuverability are intended to help them evade regional missile defenses, but some experts have questioned whether they have consistently reached the speeds claimed by the North during tests.

KCNA’s photos of Sunday’s tests showed what appeared to be two missiles tipped with conical, finned vehicles being fired from launcher trucks. Kim is seen looking at a monitoring screen that identifies the missile as a Hwasong-11Ma, a system North Korea has previously described as hypersonic.

Graphics on the screen showed a missile trajectory overlaid on a map, along with figures for a speed of 2,146 meters (1.3 miles) per second, an altitude of 35.8 kilometers (22 miles) and a range of 908.2 kilometers (564 miles). The reported distance exceeded the flight range announced by South Korea’s military. Jang Do-young, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military was assessing the details from the North Korean report and cautioned that the North’s claims about missile capabilities “cannot be 100% trusted.”

The launches were the latest in a series of weapons demonstrations by North Korea even after U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back a joint military exercise with South Korea last month in an apparent effort to revive diplomacy with Kim, who has called such drills invasion rehearsals. Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, dismissed Trump’s overture, saying that shortening the drill would not change its “provocative, aggressive nature.”

North Korea has a long history of ratcheting up pressure on South Korea when it doesn’t get what it wants from the United States, and Kim Jong Un has recently taken a particularly hostile stance toward Seoul, suspending virtually all inter-Korean cooperation and dialogue and declaring the South a permanent enemy.

In a written response to questions by The Associated Press, liberal South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who favors engagement with the North, expressed hope Tuesday that a resumption of Trump-Kim diplomacy would help reopen dialogue between the two Koreas. He called for a practical, step-by-step approach to North Korea’s denuclearization, with incentives offered as Pyongyang makes progress toward eliminating its nuclear weapons.

Emboldened by his advancing nuclear arsenal and deepening ties with Russia and China, experts say Kim likely sees himself as having greater leverage in any renewed diplomacy with Trump. His government has said Washington must first drop its “hostile policy” — a term Pyongyang mainly uses to describe U.S.-led sanctions and joint U.S.-South Korea military drills — and abandon demands for North Korea’s denuclearization as a precondition for talks.

FILE - In this photo provided by the North Korean government, its leader Kim Jong Un attends a parade with his daughter in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 25, 2026 as the North wrapped up the Workers' Party congress. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

A TV screen shows a file image of a North Korean missile launch during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)