That probably wasn’t the kind of history the Atlanta Hawks wanted to make on Thursday.
As the buzzer sounded to end the first half, the Hawks found themselves down 83-36 to the New York Knicks in an elimination game. That’s not just a beatdown, it’s the largest halftime lead in the history of the NBA playoffs at 47 points.
But that wasn’t the end of the futility for Atlanta. Let’s just run through how bad a half of basketball that was, via the magic of numbers.
51
That was the Knicks’ largest lead of the first half. If that margin held up to halftime, it would have been the largest halftime lead in NBA history, regular season or postseason. The current record-holder is 50 points, held by the Dallas Mavericks in 2020.
60-19
There were plenty of ridiculous scores in that first half — 48-15, 72-22, 83-35 — but the most absurd was 60-19. That’s the precise score that led to the scoreboard displaying “Kinda One Sided Isn’t It” in Space Jam.
the Knicks are leading the Hawks 60-19, which is around the same score the Monstars were leading the Tune Squad by that caused the scoreboard to read “Kinda One Sided Isn’t It?” pic.twitter.com/Qeyv2rSjJk
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) May 1, 2026
10
The Haws committed eight turnovers in the first quarter, then two more in the first minute of the second quarter. That’s 12 turnovers in the span of 13 minutes.
4,550
There have been 4,550 playoff games in the history of the NBA. That’s 9,099 teams the Hawks performed worse than in the first half.
-17
Bench forward Mouhamed Gueye had a plus/minus of minus-17 in the first half. That is normally bad. In the context of the Hawks, it was the best mark of any player who saw more than five minutes. The worst: Jonathan Kuminga at minus-40 in 12 minutes.
