NEW YORK – There was no secret to what the New York Knicks were going to do Saturday night in the opening game of the NBA Eastern Conference play-off first-round series.

Nor do the Atlanta Hawks expect there to be any mystery on Monday (Tuesday morning, Singapore time).

The Knicks will look to take a commanding lead in on Monday night, when they host the Hawks in Game 2 of the best-of-seven series.

New York did not trail for the final three-plus quarters of Game 1 on Saturday, when they held off a late comeback by the visiting Hawks to earn a 113-102 victory.

Jalen Brunson scored 19 of his game-high 28 points in the first quarter for the Knicks, who improved to 6-2 in series openers over the last three years.

Fellow starters OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges then combined for 54 points on 17-of-32 shooting in the last 36 minutes.

The balanced attack is nothing new for the Knicks, whose starters combined to average 89.2 points per game during the regular season.

“We feel like the team is deep and anybody can get going at any time,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said. “For us, it’s about sacrificing and not worrying about shots, minutes or anything like that.”

The Knicks, who allowed the fifth-fewest points in the league (110.1) while also limiting opponents to 46 per cent shooting during the regular season, also recovered from a slow start to clamp down defensively upon the Hawks in the second half.

“We kind of expected the Knicks to just play their style of basketball,” Hawks forward Jalen Johnson said as he looked ahead to Game 2.

“I think we did a good job of coming out prepared for that (in Game 1). And then I think in the second half, we’ve just got to continue to play our brand of basketball, continue to play how we play.”

Atlanta, which ranked sixth in the NBA with 118.5 points per game...