Which Knicks were going to show up to Madison Square Garden on Sunday?
It was the question of the hour as a mixed bag of Knicks, chock full of inconsistencies on both ends of the floor, hosted the Western Conference’s No. 2-seeded San Antonio Spurs in a matinee matchup serving equal parts barometer and way-too-early NBA championship preview coming out of their three-game road trip.
The Knicks hadn’t acquitted themselves particularly well in any of their higher-leverage games leading into Victor Wembanyama’s arrival at the Garden on Sunday. Coming out of the All-Star break, they’d lost to both the Detroit Pistons (0-3 against the East’s No. 1 seed this season) and Cleveland Cavaliers by 15. They had also beaten the Houston Rockets by two and the Milwaukee Bucks (without Giannis Antetokounmpo) by nearly 30.
The swing was a microcosm of the Knicks’ season: They look like world beaters on some nights and a team on the brink of an epic collapse on others. And for the second time this season, in a 114-89 victory on Sunday, the Knicks looked like world beaters against a team they very well could face in the NBA Finals.
“I think It’s just another example of where we can be defensively. We have to do that on a nightly basis,” said Josh Hart. “Now, we know it’s all about getting better every day and being the best team we can be going into the playoffs. We have to continue to build off of this. And not have lulls at this point. It can’t be up and down. It has to be a steady climb.”
They looked like a team that could win it all. At least the version of the Knicks that walked into the Garden on Sunday did.
Time will tell which rendition of themselves the Knicks will put on the floor for the remainder of their season. There might not be another team whose ebbs and flows have been so volatile this season. Yet Sunday’s victory embodied many of the staples Mike Brown has tried to install on both ends of the floor in his first year on the job.
Case in point: The Knicks were disorganized offensively, to say the least, to start the first quarter but hung tough with their defense long enough for Jalen Brunson to erupt for one of his signature early outbursts. Brunson scored 11 points in the first quarter against the Spurs. He scored 22 game-opening points against the Bucks on Friday and ranks second behind only his former teammate Luka Doncic in first-quarter points per game (9.6) on the season.
The defensive effort wasn’t new. The Spurs and Knicks ranked second and third, respectively, in defensive rating over the eight games walking into Sunday’s meeting at MSG. Yet the sustained defense in minutes with Karl-Anthony Towns on the floor was a refreshing sight: The Knicks held the Spurs scoreless for nearly the first four minutes of the second quarter behind a lineup of Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Mohamed Diawara and Jose Alvarado. That lineup had only played nine minutes over two games prior to Sunday but owned a net rating of nearly 60 in those minutes — and on Sunday, it was the lineup that gave the Knicks a double-digit lead.
From the 10:57 mark of the second quarter on, the Spurs never cut New York’s lead to less than eight. The Knicks blew the game open with a 19-point run.
“Just defense. We did a great job defensively as a team and just helping each other out. Sometimes there will be some missed coverages, but next guy stepping up for each other, that’s huge for us,” said Bridges. “Especially pick and roll and helping the helper. I think in the past, sometimes we’re leaving guys on an island and not trusting each other as much. But we talked about it, and we had to be better and we’ll keep getting better at it.”
A rare appearance from an aggressive Bridges helped the Knicks extend their lead even further.
Bridges scored a team-high 25 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field and 5-of-9 from 3-point range to go with five steals and five rebounds for his first game with 20 or more points since the All-Star break. Brunson finished with 24 points and converted on four of his seven 3-point attempts, and all five Knicks starters scored in double figures for the second game in a row. Towns added 12 points and 14 rebounds, and the rookie Diawara seized his opportunity with 14 points in 14 minutes.
Jeremy Sochan played only two minutes of garbage time at the end of the game.
Wembanyama finished with 25 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks but turned the ball over seven times. The Knicks held De’Aaron Fox, Brown’s old point guard, to seven points on 3-of-10 shooting, and allowed just 23 points to San Antonio’s bench, seven coming in garbage time.
“They’re a really good team, and you’ve gotta bring your A-game,” said Bridges. “The thing is, we’re just trying to be the best version of ourselves, and we keep getting better no matter who’s in front of us and just try to do the right things.”
Next up, the Knicks travel to Toronto to face the Raptors before returning to the Garden for another test: their first game of the season against the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the second leg of a back-to-back.