Deuce McBride takes advantage of opportunity and energizes Knicks

PORTLAND, Ore. — When Deuce McBride arrived in New York he came with a reputation: a tenacious defender, an elite high school quarterback who carried that mentality of toughness and smarts onto the court. But there was a moment — there always is — when even his teammates saw that there was something different about him.

“This was at home in the Garden versus [Golden State],” Immanuel Quickley recalled. “It was out of the timeout. I was going to get Steph Curry to go guard him and he was like, ‘No, no, no. I got him.’ I just looked at him like, ‘OK.’ I think this was his rookie year. My second year was his rookie year. That was like a — wow, that’s tough for someone not to be scared.”

Quickley’s reaction?

“I was just like, ‘Oh, OK,’ ” he said. “ 'Go ahead. Knock yourself out.’ ”

On most nights, stuck behind Jalen Brunson and Quickley, that is as much of a role as McBride gets. In the first 15 games this season he scraped together just over 10 minutes total playing time, and before Brunson suffered a foot injury that has sidelined him for all but 19 minutes in the last six games, McBride had totaled 12 minutes. But without Brunson he has gotten a chance and shown his value again — maybe no more so than Tuesday night when he posted a career-high 18 points off the bench and helped spark a comeback win over the Trail Blazers.

“Deuce, you can't say enough about what he did,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “That's probably his best game as a pro.”

“Honestly, I knew I needed to step up,” McBride said. "End of a road trip, I felt like we came out flat and I just wanted to be a spark, give energy and do what I can.”

His words were interrupted as Josh Hart walked by and shouted, “Obviously, he was the man tonight.” It could be argued that Hart was, contributing 16 points, nine rebounds and eight assists and leading a second unit that turned the game after a sluggish start had put the team in a 16-point hole.

McBride not only scored, hitting 4 of 5 from beyond the arc, but clamped down on Damian Lillard, harassing the Portland star into 11-for-26 shooting even as Lillard scored 38 points. But more than points was a play in which he raced back on defense to deflect a long outlet pass for Anfernee Simons, then recovered as Simons went up for a dunk, swatting the shot into the seats.

"That block was crazy,” Quickley said. “Got all of us off the bench. Those are the plays we need. We need guys to make those extra-effort plays, help us get stops, just bring the energy of the team up. Obviously, the block will show up on the stat sheet but what it does to the team morale won’t show up. We need that.”

With the Knicks pulling away they tried to get McBride to 20 points.  He got to 18 on a breakaway dunk in which, rather than toss it to Obi Toppin running next to him, he kept it and dunked it himself, hanging on the rim.

“If he didn’t dunk that I would have been really upset,” Toppin joked. “But because he dunked that, he hung on the rim the way he did, I accept that. I didn’t need that pass. He’s amazing. He deserves it. He worked really hard. Opportunity showed itself so he performed.”

With Brunson moving closer to a return — possibly in Saturday’s meeting with the Denver Nuggets at the Garden — McBride will likely see his minutes trimmed again. But he knows his job now: Stay ready.

“It shows his work,” Hart said. “Because it’s a long season, an up-and-down season, there’s times when you’re going to play well, you don’t play good, you don’t play at all. He was going through that. And he’s been giving us good minutes on this road trip. Tonight was an example of how hard he’s been working and how he’s still locked in. We’re just happy for him.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.