Knicks match Heat's toughness to win Game 2, even series
The pregame introductions of the starting lineups were read off before the game at Madison Square Garden as the 19,812 cheered wildly, the announcement that Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson were in and Jimmy Butler out of action seemingly enough to wrap this all up and head to the bar to celebrate.
With their full lineup intact, the Heat missing their most important player and the Knicks adding a whiff of desperation, the pieces seemed to be in place. But the Heat, with an assortment of castoffs and undrafted players were not going to make it easy as the one thing the Knicks talked about hours before the game was a need to match — and exceed — the hustle and physicality of the Heat.
For much of the night, it seemed the Miami little lineup that could would hang on in an unlikely upset. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but in the end the Knicks finally managed to pull out a 111-105 win and the score that will linger for the next three days off is that the Knicks managed to even the best-of-seven series at 1-1 heading to Miami.
It took heroics from Brunson, who finished with 30 points — 10 in the fourth quarter, and a stellar effort from Randle, who added 25 points and 12 rebounds. And still, it took Isaiah Hartenstein and Josh Hart (14 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists) scrambling all over the floor in the fourth quarter to seemingly capture every loose ball, matching the grit of the Heat. And in the end the Knicks had just enough.
“That’s who he is, a great leader,” Tom Thibodeau said of Brunson. “Great toughness. He never disappoints you. Sometimes you can fall short, but there’s no quit in him. He never quits on a play. So I can never say enough about that. He keeps everyone connected.”
The Knicks entered the fourth quarter trailing by a point and Randle, playing well, looked gassed as he headed to the bench. Brunson joined him on the end of the bench and the Knicks put four subs on the floor with RJ Barrett to try to keep the game alive while the stars rested. That mission was accomplished as coach Tom Thibodeau rushed them back onto the floor with slightly less than four minutes of rest and the Knicks down by five.
But the Heat kept pushing the Knicks to the brink. The Knicks trapped Gabe Vincent and in a scramble he picked up the ball, appeared to travel, but with no call he found Caleb Martin alone on the other side of the court and Martin drained a three for a 93-87 lead. To that point, the undrafted duo of Martin and Vincent had combined to score all 16 of the Miami points.
The Knicks got a corner three from Brunson — and after a replay review, a foul that sent Hartenstein to the line for one more to close the gap to 93-91. And on the next trip Brunson hit a short jumper to tie the score at 93. Brunson then capped a 12-3 run with a pull-up three-pointer for a 99-96 lead with 4:06 to play.
The biggest play might have come in a scramble as Martin fired up a desperation three with the shot clock running down. The Heat were whistled for a 24-second violation, but the ball appeared to skim the rim and was caught by Vincent and laid in. What could have cut the lead to one, instead turned into a 101-96 Knicks lead when Brunson scored on the other end after imploring the referee to give him the ball to inbound it as the Heat tried to argue their case.
The Heat didn’t give up and closed it to one again before Hart hit a three from the corner with 1:38 to play and when he misfired the next time down he grabbed the offensive rebound and after a miss inside, Randle pulled down another offensive rebound, drawing a foul and giving the Knicks a six-point lead with 1:02 left.
After Vincent misfired from three and Hart outraced Martin to a loose ball, Mitchell Robinson added 1 of 2 from the line to make it a three-possession game with 47.6 seconds left. But the Heat kept coming — Vincent slithered through traffic, falling and keeping his dribble on the way — for a layup to make it 108-102 and then Randle failed to get the ball inbounds. Duncan Robinson drained a three and the Knicks called time with 22 seconds left, the lead down to three.
The Knicks played keep away for 10 seconds until Max Strus tackled Hart and he went to the line and hit two shots to up the lead to five with 12.8 seconds left.
“It’s very much a team win,” Randle said. “Everybody stepped up at key moments, did little things to help us win, whether it showed up in the boxscore or not.”
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.
