Let p ∈ (1, ∞) and q ∈ [1, ∞). In this article, the authors characterize the Triebel-Lizorkin space F α p,q (R n ) with smoothness order α ∈ (0, 2) via the Lusinarea function and the g * λ -function in terms of difference between f (x) and its average (x, t) centered at x ∈ R n with radius t ∈ (0, 1). As an application, the authors obtain a series of characterizations of F α p,∞ (R n ) via pointwise inequalities, involving ball averages, in spirit close to Haj lasz gradients, here an interesting phenomena naturally appears that, in the end-point case when α = 2, these pointwise inequalities characterize the Triebel-Lizorkin spaces F 2 p,2 (R n ), while not F 2 p,∞ (R n ). In particular, some new pointwise characterizations of Haj lasz-Sobolev spaces via ball averages are obtained. Since these new characterizations only use ball averages, they can be used as starting points for developing a theory of Triebel-Lizorkin spaces with smoothness orders not less than 1 on spaces of homogeneous type.