Knicks running smooth at tourney time, making NBA Cup knockout round
Jalen Brunson of the Knicks reacts during the first half against the Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
OK, we all knew the Knicks’ offense was good. But this good?
The Knicks, who have struggled to find their identity so far this season, dismantled one of the best defenses in the NBA on Tuesday night. They did it with a buzzer-beating bank shot. They did it with crazy no-look passes. They did it with fierce rim-rattling dunks.
No, this is not your father’s low-scoring, defense-first Knicks. (Or, for that matter, your mother’s.)
In a game they needed to win in order to advance to the knockout round of the NBA Cup, the Knicks steamrolled the Orlando Magic, 121-106, at Madison Square Garden.
With the victory, the Knicks finished 4-0 in NBA Cup group play. The win means the Knicks will host the Atlanta Hawks next Wednesday in the knockout round with the winner advancing to Las Vegas for the tournament’s final four.
It also means much more than that. It demonstrates that the Knicks are starting to wake up to the fact that they are a team built to contend for a championship, just not to light up the scoreboard and produce highlight plays.
“It means a lot,” Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson said when asked what it was like to see the team’s offense produce at such a high level in the first half. “The ball is going in and we are making the right plays. We were able to get going early.”
The Knicks made big changes this summer, trading for starters Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, in order to challenge the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference. After getting off to a less than auspicious start — including the suffering of an embarrassing loss in Boston in the season opener — the Knicks are showing some serious signs of figuring their team out.
Tuesday night’s win was the Knicks’ third straight and their eighth in their last 10 games. Most important, it came against a good team. Despite being without forward Paolo Banchero, who has been sidelined since the start of November with a torn abdominal muscle, the Magic entered the game having won six straight and 12 of their last 13.
The Knicks — who have the top-ranked offense in the NBA — led by 20 points at the end of the first half and by as many as 37 points in the game. The Knicks finished shooting 50.6% from the field and 42.9% from beyond the arc. Towns led the Knicks with 23 points and 15 rebounds. Josh Hart had a triple-double with 11 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists. Brunson, who did not even play in the fourth quarter, had 21 points. All told, six Knicks players finished in double figures.
“I love how unselfish we were,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “I thought we made great reads. When we got into the paint, just making the extra pass and creating the right space. which got us going. When you do that, everyone finds rhythm and you are creating good shots for each other. It’s everyone working together, and I think that’s important.”
The NBA introduced the in-season tournament last season as a way increase interest in the league before Christmas. While the tournament — whose most notable feature is its garish-colored courts — is hokey, contrived and ultimately means little as far as where a team is in the standings at the end of the year, there are coaches who believe it has some potential value as far as helping teams pull teams together.
For example, few predicted that the sixth-seeded Pacers would make it to the Eastern Conference finals last season after upsetting Milwaukee in the first round and then beating the Knicks in a pivotal Game 7 at Madison Square Garden in the second.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, however, has said his team became mentally prepared for the playoffs four months before they opened because of the success they enjoyed in getting to the finals of last year’s NBA Cup.
“Our guys got a taste of what the elevated stage is all about,” Carlisle said. “It’s so important to have this experience, to feel the intensity, to feel the glare and the glow and find out what it means to be totally together in an effort to conquer it.”
Thibodeau has been careful not to be critical of the in-season tournament. Still, it was clear in his pregame news conference that he doesn’t put any more emphasis on his team winning an in-season tournament game than he does on them winning any other regular-season game.
“I think each team is different and you try to use it whatever way you can,” Thibodeau said when asked if it could motivate his team like it motivated Carlisle’s. “I think the big thing about our league is that they all count the same, so don’t get lost and distracted with the hoopla that this is a big game, you should win that game. It doesn’t work that way. You have to get ready every night. And you have to be prepared for your next opponent.”
On Tuesday night, the Knicks were so ready on offense that there were times it took your breath away.
No, this is not your parents’ Knicks.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.