Knicks prepare for Game 2 vs. Pistons team with chip on its shoulder
GREENBURGH — There are two ways of looking at this.
On one hand, the Knicks took the Pistons’ best shot in Game 1 of the teams’ first-round playoff series on Saturday night but won anyway, 123-112, behind a 21-0 fourth-quarter run. Can Detroit be that good again?
On the other hand, the Pistons proved they can play with the Knicks and were on the cusp of an upset before things went awry during one disastrous 4½-minute stretch. Why can’t Detroit be that good again?
The answers will become clearer on Monday night when the teams meet again for Game 2 at Madison Square Garden.
The Pistons are unapologetically confident and cocky, but the Knicks have more talent, experience and versatility. We shall see what matters more in the end.
What we know for sure, at least according to the Knicks, is that nothing about Game 1 convinced them Game 2 and beyond will be any easier.
When someone asked coach Tom Thibodeau on Sunday if the Knicks might have broken the Pistons’ spirit with that Game 1 surge, he could not say “no” fast enough.
“The challenge of the playoffs is it’s one game,” he said. “You have to reset. You have got to do it all over again. You have to have the right mindset. In this league, you start feeling too good about yourself, that’s when you get knocked down.”
Josh Hart was asked the same question and gave the same answer — more colorfully, of course. “Not at all,” Hart said. “They’re a more dangerous team [Monday night] than they were in Game 1. Whenever you come off a loss, a loss they feel like they probably could have won, that they should have won, today you’re feeling bad.
“You’re listening to your coach showing you different plays on film of how this play could have impacted a game or that play and you have a little more of a chip on your shoulder and you’re going out with added physicality, added energy. So they’re a dangerous team.”
The theory behind the Knicks being favored in the series did not fundamentally change in Game 1.
Jalen Brunson (34 points, eight assists) and Karl-Anthony Towns (23 points, 11 rebounds) were productive when needed and OG Anunoby discombobulated Pistons star Cade Cunningham with his defense.
Add an X-factor in Cam Payne coming off the bench to score 11 points in the fourth quarter, plus a raucous Garden atmosphere, and it all turned out fine for the Knicks despite the scare they got.
Detroit is no pushover, both in basketball terms and in its mentality. It would be reasonable to assume the Knicks would relish shutting up the brash young Pistons by shutting them down quickly in the series.
But Thibodeau does not want them getting ahead of themselves, and he likely showed the players more video of the first three quarters of Game 1 than the fourth. “You can’t get to the playoffs without being a good team,” Thibodeau said of the Pistons. “They demonstrated that all year. We understand how good they are and we have to be ready.”
The Knicks and Pistons are not the only groups facing challenges in this series. It was evident in Game 1 that the referees are in for a wild ride, too. Often, they let the teams play and did not whistle clear physical contact, but plenty of fouls were called anyway. That is the Pistons’ style, and the Knicks cannot back down from it.
“They had some plays they called that I thought they could have let go and ones that I felt they could have let go that they called,” Hart said. “You have to adapt to what they’re calling.
“You’ve got to give them love because they’ve got the worst job right now . . . [On Saturday] we’re out there in our home crowd, there are chants of ‘let’s go Knicks.’ In Detroit, they’ll be chanting ‘let’s go Pistons.’
“I don’t think anyone’s going to be chanting ‘let’s go refs.’ You’ve got to show love to those guys and adapt to how they call it . . . They’ve got the toughest job in the world right now of trying to officiate these games at the speed they’re going, the physicality they’re going.
“You’ve got to give them credit. Even me sometimes, I’ll get off their back.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
