“Absolutely INSANE!!!” – Knicks Fan Rich Reacts to New York's 51-Point Blowout of the Hawks

On The Rich Eisen Show the morning after the Knicks demolished the Hawks by 51 to close out the first round, Rich led with a confession.

"Very rarely will I come on this show and say I didn't see the game," Rich said. "But here I have to admit, I stopped watching Hawks and Knicks after the Hawks were up 11 to 9."

Did anything happen after that?

A can of buttwhup, in the show's preferred phrasing, was opened. The cast then walked Rich through the wreckage record by record.

Stephen A. Smith dubbed it Area 51. The 140-89 final was the largest playoff margin of victory in Knicks franchise history. The 47-point halftime lead set a new NBA record. At one point New York led by 61, the largest lead at any point in any playoff game in league history.

"The Knicks could have went almost 23 minutes and not scored at the end of the game and they still would have won," the cast pointed out.

The individual lines were a parade. The 140 points were a Knicks playoff scoring record. So were the 83 first-half points, the 21 first-half assists, and the 12 first-half steals. OG Anunoby was plus-42 and got name-checked by Anne Hathaway on Jimmy Fallon, where she reportedly said she nearly showed up wearing his jersey.

"Whoa," Rich said. "What?"

Carl Anthony Towns finished with what TJ called a triple-double of a unique flavor. Twelve points, eleven rebounds, and ten assists. Jalen Brunson was plus-41 even after a collision with Trae Young's teammate Onyeka Okongwu. Josh Hart was plus-35. Mikal Bridges was plus-40. Mitchell Robinson was plus-29 when he got ejected during a brief skirmish with Dyson Daniels.

The Hawks numbers were where the joke turned cruel. Jalen Johnson was minus-43. Daniels was minus-36 when he picked up the ejection.

"Antarctica temperatures," Rich said.

The cast surfaced a clip from Inside the NBA where Shaq, in his halftime bit, was shown performing CPR on a Hawks mascot stuffy. The whole studio was running with it.

Rich also walked back his own pre-game take with the kind of self-awareness the show is built on.

"One of my worst takes," Rich said. "Going off the air yesterday, I'm like, yeah, there's going to be a game seven for the Knicks because they never make anything easy. And they were in a rocking chair after being down 11 to 9."

The cast played sound from Brunson on the Knicks defense and the long road still ahead. Rich pivoted to the standings reality this game produced. The Knicks are the first Eastern Conference team through to the second round. CJ McCollum's Madison Square Garden moment in Game 2, when he was playing like a hybrid of Reggie Miller and Tyrese Haliburton, was followed by three straight Knicks wins to close it.

Not a single Knicks player logged more than 30 minutes. They get the weekend off. Boston and the rest of the East are still fighting through Game 7s.

The show landed somewhere between awe and laughter. It was, as Rich put it more than once, absolutely insane.