John Collins needs to step up and show that he is a dynamic scorer

Trae Young is going to do his thing in this series and Bogdan Bogdanovic has been hot over the last month or so, but John Collins really needs to step up for the Hawks in the series. He was not good in Game 1, scoring just 12 points in 35 minutes and in Game 2, he put up a goose egg on 0-2 shooting in 15 minutes. 

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Atlanta pulled Collins from the game due to his struggles and foul trouble and he really was never able to get in a groove in Game 2. Moving forward, Collins has to prove to be a viable weapon for the Hawks, especially since he is set to become a restricted free agent this summer. 

Collins and the Hawks were unable to reach a long-term agreement prior to the start of this year and if he wants any shot of getting paid what he thinks he is worth, then he needs to prove it in this series. 

The winner of this Hawks-Knicks first-round series will be the team that gets the most out of their secondary talent. For the Knicks, Derrick Rose and Alec Burks are the two guys that need to continue to play at a high-level and for the Hawks, John Collins and Danilo Gallinari are the two guys that can shift the balance of this series in their favor. 

At the end of the day though, regardless of what everybody else on the Hawks roster is doing, John Collins needs to be better and needs to make his presence known early on in the rest of the games in this series.