NEW YORK -- Standing at his locker after it was all over, Knicks All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns had a big smile on his face. It was an expression he could afford to have after his team managed to squeak past the Atlanta Hawks 149-148 in overtime to win the NBA's highest-scoring -- and perhaps its wildest -- game of the season.
"I would've needed a therapist if we'd come out of that with an L; I'm not going to lie to you," said Towns, who finished with 44 points and 10 rebounds but also had a turnover in the closing seconds of regulation that could have cost the Knicks.
Jalen Brunson, who scored 36 points, hit a pull-up jumper with 11 seconds left in overtime that turned out to be the winner.
"There's no set time of whose turn it is or what. I mean, we don't really play like that," Brunson said. "I just think that we were reading, we're playing and reacting, and just whatever it takes to win."
But New York thought it had the game in hand far earlier; so much so that a number of fans -- with the Knicks leading by six with 18 seconds left in regulation -- started exiting Madison Square Garden to get a head start on the commute home.
A Georges Niang 3-pointer cut the deficit in half with nine seconds left, and then Towns threw an errant pass on the ensuing inbounds play that Hawks guard Dyson Daniels managed to steal under the basket before being fouled.
Daniels made his first free throw, to cut the Knicks' lead to two, but missed his second. He grabbed his own rebound, and Hawks star Trae Young drew a foul before tying the score at 137-137 on a pair of free throws with two seconds left.
The abrupt turnaround left the Garden stunned, particularly since the Knicks had led by as many as 18 points in the high-paced game -- one in which eight players finished with 20 points or more.
The Knicks had blown a sizable lead to lose to the Hawks earlier in the season during the NBA Cup. But playing the second of a back-to-back Wednesday, New York dug deep enough to salvage a victory.
Flawed as it might have been, the win left the Knicks with a 36-18 mark heading into the All-Star break, their best record through 54 games since 1996-97. "It's great to go into the break with a win, no matter how we got it," said Brunson, who will be a starter in the exhibition this weekend along with Towns. "We fought through, regardless of what we did, positive or negative. We came out with a win."
New York overcame Young -- who has become a Garden foil -- putting up a monster game with 38 points and 19 assists. He had the ball in his hands on the final possession but found himself blanketed by Mikal Bridges, who got defensive help when Young called for a screen.
Young ended up passing to Niang for the last shot in the final second, but it was rushed, and Niang misfired.
"I just saw too much of a crowd. I think if we had it to do all over again, we would have spaced it to allow me to go by [Bridges] and draw help or something. I think the screen caused too much combustion at the top," Young said of the play design. "We didn't get a good shot up."