As of Friday afternoon, most books had the New York Knicks (55-31 straight up, 44-44-1 against the spread) installed as 1.5-point road favorites at Atlanta in Saturday’s Game 4 of this best-of-seven series in the first round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

The Atlanta Hawks (48-37 SU, 46-39 ATS) took a 2-1 lead in the series with Thursday’s 109-108 win as 1.5-point home underdogs. The 217 combined points inched ‘over’ the 214.5-point total.

CJ McCollum buried a fadeaway 15-foot jumper with 12.5 seconds remaining to lift the Hawks to victory. They got a stop at the other end when Jalen Brunson threw the ball away with a few seconds left.

Quin Snyder’s team nearly coughed up an 18-point lead after leading for most of the game, but McCollum wasn’t having it. He scored 23 points to go with five rebounds, two steals, two blocked shots and one assist.

Jalen Johnson scored 24 points, snagged 10 rebounds, dished out eight assists, had two steals and blocked one shot. Jonathan Kuminga made 9-of-14 field-goal attempts and finished with 21 points in 28 minutes of playing time from off the bench.

OG Anunoby had 29 points, nine boards and three blocked shots, while Brunson produced 26 points, four assists, three rebounds and a pair of steals in the losing effort.

FanDuel’s updated series price has Atlanta as a -126 ‘chalk,’ leaving the Knicks at +108 on the comeback.

McCollum has been elite in this series, scoring 26, 32 and 23 points. He is certainly getting his shots up, going 11-of-20, 12-of-22 and 8-of-19 from the field while logging an average of 34.7 minutes per game.

McCollum has produced at least 21 points in 11 of Atlanta’s last 18 games. He scored 29 points in a win over Cleveland in the last regular season game he played in.

Snyder continues to bring him ball screens that often end up with Brunson defending McCollum, who has continually stated that the Villanova product can’t check him. He hasn’t been proven wrong in that assertion yet – at least not in this series.

PREDICTION: Let’s risk 1.68 units to win 1.5 units on McCollum to go ‘over ‘19.5 points (-112 price at FanDuel). Let’s also risk 0.5 units to win 1.4 units on McCollum to score 25 points or more (+280 at FanDuel, it’s a push if he scores exactly 25 points).