Knicks 119, Jazz 103: “The beauty of it”
No Jalen Brunson, no problem as the Knicks flexed the rest of their stardom in a rout
You’ve heard it before, probably even from me. But lest it get lost in the fanfare, hear me now: this New York Knicks team is special. After kicking off the New Year with a ninth straight win sans their best player, blurred visions of title contention are becoming clear.
Jalen Brunson was ruled out before Wednesday’s 119-103 triumph over the Utah Jazz. Miles McBride was ruled out during warmups. Tasked with filling four shoes, their supporting cast stepped past those footprints and made their own. Cameron Payne and Tyler Kolek played point guard, the latter after putting on a 40-minute G League masterclass earlier the same day. Karl-Anthony Towns had 31 and 21, Mikal Bridges 27, OG Anunoby 22 and Josh Hart a second straight triple-double as New York played their brand of basketball and nothing more, nothing less. To loosely quote Mike Breen: “That’s the beauty of it. It’s never forced. They’re playing within the flow of the offense.”
Every player on this team is playing their best brand of basketball to date. That kind of magic cements the capability of any team hoping to hoist the Larry O’Brien. I’ve never put it on paper, but this New York team has the stuff. No, not Michael’s Secret Stuff – something better. Something more. They have answers. But first, they had to address the problem.
Which takes me back to New Year’s Day in 2020. My ex-girlfriend bought us tickets to a matinee that day against the Portland Trail Blazers, most relevant to me because of a certain future Hall of Famer suiting up in a red and black, double zero jersey. Carmelo Anthony made his first appearance at Madison Square Garden since 2017, when he played (and definitely started) for Oklahoma City.
Predictably he came out shooting, finishing with 26 on 11 made shots. New York opened the fourth with a 14-0 run, shutting the door on any Anthony homecoming win. Julius Randle had 22 for the Knicks that night. So did Mitchell Robinson, the only player remaining from the 2019-20 pri-thibsian ooze and the payoff from New York trading Melo years earlier. For me, that was the beginning of this era of Knicks basketball. The team and I both said goodbye to Anthony in person, and firmly on the shoulders of the team’s new star in Randle and succeeding draft pick in Robinson.
Leon Rose was hired two months later in March, and Tom Thibodeau that July. New York snapped a seven-year playoff drought the following year and the rest is history. Or is it the present? How do you quantify the beginning of something that hasn’t ended? Or maybe it has ended.
Perhaps a night when the Knicks’ best player being out was merely a bump in the road to a convincing ninth-straight win is the culmination of that saga. We longed for stars to come to New York. Today there’s five on the floor to start the game, regardless of All-Star ballots come February. In Brunson, Bridges, Hart, Anunoby and Towns, the Knicks have a team operating as a unit, even when one is missing. That’s the beauty of it.
Notes
Bridges’ cold streak is as good as never happened. He started the season missing some incredibly frustrating looks with an even more dissuading shot. Today he’s making ridiculously difficult shots, with the same shot now compelling in an almost cute kind of way. He has more points the last five games than Anthony Edwards, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum — and yes, Julius Randle. Keep going, guy. No underdog story is read more than those covered on Broadway, and nowhere is one appreciated more than here, by a fanbase that was underdog personified for so many years.
This was one of Anunoby’s best games in a Knicks uniform. He was everywhere early on, letting Markkanen – who’d scored 34 in November when Utah won the first leg of this matchup – know that the second verse would not be the same as the first. Not only did Anunoby hold him to just 16 points on 27% shooting, he topped him with 22 of his own, a two-way effort for one of the league’s best.
Shoutout to Payne, who got the spot start for the spot starter. He took the floor with purpose from the jump, recording three assists and two steals in the first quarter. A table-setter on offense, he was deliberate in getting guys good looks in transition, sparking the Knicks to 34 fast-break points. Payne finished with eight points, nine assists and three steals in 35 minutes. This three, followed by a hop and a skip down the court, took me back to the Immanuel Quickley days.
New York’s bench triumvirate of Kolek (+11), Precious Achiuwa (+15) and Landry Shamet (+10) did their jobs. The big sneeze had another big dunk and a corner three, Shamet played some fantastic defense and the rookie had four assists to go with no turnovers. There’s little more you or the Knicks could have asked of those three, particularly given their individual contexts.
Said this on the Run.Down after the first of two wins over the Washington Wizards, but Hart is the second-biggest beneficiary of New York’s five-out spacing, behind only Brunson. The lanes that have opened up and defensive attention being diverted toward other threats has paved the way for him to be the best version of himself. This second straight triple-double was a thing of beauty, and, at times, an image of brute force. This dunk got me out of my bed.
Hart is having a career season, averaging 14.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, 5.7 (!!!) assists and 1.5 steals per on 57/39/81 shooting. Is a 50/40/90 season out of reach? For the Knicks’ fifth banana? This season is fucking wild, man.
The story of the night seemed to be Hart’s triple-double, but I really thought if anyone this game belonged to Towns. From the jump, he was determined to play up to the challenge of Utah’s seven-foot duo of Markkanen and Walker Kessler. It didn’t translate immediately, with him notching just four points and three rebounds in the first quarter, but perseverance was the name of Big Purr’s game on Wednesday. Take these missed and made dunks – in that order – as all the proof you need.
An absolute uncanny night that has somehow become the norm. New York will need every bit of that same performance Friday in Oklahoma City for a showdown with Isaiah Hartenstein and the Thunder, on an eight-game winning streak of their own.