Knicks tough enough against Pistons in Game 3 victory

DETROIT – Soft? Disconnected? Not this time. Not this game.

In a Little Caesars Arena that was so loud you could barely think let alone communicate, the Knicks pushed back and pushed back hard at the notion that they lacked toughness and drive to beat a physical young team like the Pistons.

Leading the push was Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks All-Star center. Playing with the kind of force the Knicks envisioned when they traded for him at the start of training camp, Towns scored 31 points and grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots to help lead the Knicks to a 118-116 victory in Game 3 of their first round series Thursday.

The performance helped give the Knicks a 2-1 lead in the series and couldn’t have come at a better time as Towns survived three days of non-stop scrutiny after going scoreless in the second half of the Knicks Game 2 loss.

“The one thing about Kat is he doesn’t lack confidence,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. “He’s a very, very confident guy. He came out with the mindset of attacking right though the start. That was important for him and it was important for us.”

Yes, it was. Heading into Game 3, there was a lot of talk about the newly reconfigured Knicks – which not being as tough or tight of a team as the that came within one W of making it to the Eastern Conference Finals last year. At the Detroit Pistons shoot around Thursday, I asked Tobias Harris to compare the personality of this year’s Knicks team to the one he played last year in the first round of the playoffs when he was still in Philadelphia.

Harris half smiled, paused and gave an assessment that most Knicks fans had to hate to hear even if they secretly expect it might sometimes be true.

“Yeah, it’s a different dynamic for sure. That’s all I will say,” Harris said and then added, “I’m not going into detail. It’s part of our game plan.”

While Harris stopped short of calling this year’s version of the Knicks soft, the clear implication was there. With the way he and his young Pistons teammates manhandled the Knicks in the first two games, stealing away homecourt victory with a win in Game 2, it would be understandable that he would have that opinion.

That all changed in Game 2. Harris had done a nice job of keeping Towns out on the perimeter in the first two games, but he struggled so much to have the same kind of impact in Game 3 than Bickerstaff changed up and played Jalen Duren on him to start the second half.

“KAT set the tone offensively for us. Defensively as well,” said Jalen Brunson, who did some tone-setting himself by scoring 30 points despite being booed loudly nearly every time he touched the ball. “That’s the KAT we know. It’s no surprise to us. And we’re just happy to see him go out there and do it. I think we put all of ourselves in a position to be successful tonight and get the win.”

By setting the tone, Towns drew his teammate into the game. OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges combined for 42 points and six three-pointers. It was the first time since 1972 the Knicks had four players score 20 points or more in a playoff game, according to MSG. The four players to accomplish the feat were Hall of Famers Clyde Frazier, Jerry Lucas, Bill Bradley and Dave DeBusschere.

Towns also became the first Knicks center to score 30 points in a playoff game since Patrick Ewing, who did it multiple times. Thibodeau was not surprised to see him come up big when the Knicks needed him most.

Said Thibodeau of the way Towns blocked out the noise of the last few days: “Basically, he was unfazed. He’s been around. He’s got a lot of confidence and he bounced back great. He can score a lot of different ways and I thought he used his versatility as his strength and he moved extremely well without the ball. He did what he had to do.”

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

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.