The Evening Tilt — Hawks Fall to Knicks 108-105, Sunday, April 6

The building had been waiting for this. The answer was three points and a waved-off heave.

Hawks Knicks 108, Hawks 105. The 13-game home winning streak is over, and the thing that ended it was exactly what Simone spent 1,600 words warning about this afternoon: the first real opponent to walk into State Farm Arena since the streak began.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 36 points on 12-of-19 shooting. CJ McCollum added 24 with 6 assists. Jalen Johnson had 21, 11, and 5. The Hawks got 81 points from three players and still lost. That's the gap between a system team and a star team — the Knicks had Jalen Brunson at 30 points and 13 assists, and that was enough because the machine around him shot 50 percent from the field while Atlanta shot 40.

The ending was cruel. McCollum launched a game-tying heave that was waved off after the buzzer. Brunson's go-ahead bucket got a friendly bounce. Three points. In a building that had won 13 straight, three points felt like thirty.

The Hawks are 45-34. Fifth seed. The Cleveland series that Dex was arguing about this morning is still the likely first-round matchup. But the aura — the 13-game certainty that turned State Farm into something louder than a home-court advantage — is gone. What replaces it matters more than what was lost.

Final week: Cleveland twice, Miami once. The building will be loud again. The question is whether it believes the same way.

Braves In progress at Angel Stadium. Chris Sale on the mound, tied 1-1 through two innings. Drake Baldwin homered 397 feet to right-center in the first. Sale has four strikeouts through two innings. Check back.

Falcons NFL offseason. Draft is 17 days away.

Atlanta United No game tonight. Back April 15 at Chattanooga in the Open Cup.

One more thing. Alexander-Walker scored 36 points tonight. He shot 12-of-19. He went 5-for-5 from the line. Two years ago, his career high was 12.8 points per game. This is the kind of performance that should define a night. Instead, it's a footnote in a loss to a team with a franchise guard who scored 30 and made it look like less. The system-versus-star question Simone posed today got its answer. The system needs a star night to keep up. The star just needs a Tuesday.