Keon Ellis looked good.
Jalen Brunson rushed to the left.
And suddenly the Knicks are closer to the third seed in the East than eighth place.
Suddenly, the Knicks – still without All-Star forward Julius Randle (dislocated shoulder) and great man of painting presence Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) — re-established their position atop the group of Eastern Conference teams competing for the fourth, fifth and sixth seeds in the playoffs, avoiding the win-or-go-home Play-In tournament.
Suddenly, the Knicks are back — just as sudden as the move Brunson pulled off the Sacramento Kings’ rookie guard in a critical moment to seal a 98-91 victory over a quality Western Conference opponent on the road Saturday night .
The Knicks’ All-Star guard put a hard-fought, physical game out of reach by taking yet another freshman guard to school in a hostile road environment with the game on the line.
Ellis, a frantic young perimeter defender for the Kings, guarded Brunson near the half-court line with less than a minute left in the fourth quarter and the Knicks took the lead, 96-91.
Brunson, however, caught Ellis paying more attention to a potential screen coming from Isaiah Hartenstein than to the All-Star scorer dribbling the clock himself near center field.
So he faked Ellis and left him stuck in the mud.
First, the Knicks star guard held up a Hartenstein screen and asked the seven-foot big man to break away to the left.
Then Brunson motioned for Hartenstein to set a screen on Ellis’ right side.
Ellis turned his head to the right in anticipation of a Hartenstein screen.
The screen never came. That would never have been the case either.
And by the time Ellis realized he’d been tricked, Brunson had already run Brinks’ truck into the paint at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center.
The deciding moment is the money moment, and once again the Knicks star delivered a left-handed floater over defender De’Aaron Fox to give the Knicks a seven-point lead at just 35.7 seconds left in regulation time.
Game, New York.
“He’s such a gifted shooter,” Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said after the victory, New York’s third in a row and the second victory of a four-game West Coast road trip. “You almost expect what Jalen did. It’s every night, and then it’s big game after big game.
“Whenever you need a big bucket, he finds it.” »
The basket gave Brunson 40 points. The ensuing pair of free throws gave him 42 of 17 of 28 shooting from the field and 5 of 10 on shooting from downtown.
Brunson became the fourth Knick in history to score at least 40 points in consecutive games. The others are franchise legends: Bernard King, Patrick Ewing and Carmelo Anthony.
He also tied the great Richie Guerin with seven 40-point games in a single season. King holds the record with 13, Ewing ranks second with 11, and King and Anthony are tied with eight 40-point games each.
“I’m grateful, honored, but these guys have a bigger resume than me that I’ll ever have,” he humbly said in his post-match interview. “It’s a credit to them, but I’m just trying to help my team win.”
Brunson hung his 42 without the benefit of the whistle, attempting just four free throws in a game where he relentlessly attacked the paint against a physical Kings defense.
Brunson’s average of 18.9 drives per game ranks him second in all of basketball behind Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (not counting Memphis Grizzlies All-Star Ja Morantwho has only played nine games this season).
Yet Brunson is averaging just 2.5 free throws per game on drives to the rim.
In fact, Brunson has driven to the rim a total of 1,152 times so far this season, according to data from the NBA stats site, and has made 151 free throws on those drives, or about one free throw for every 10 workouts to the brink this season. season.
Utah Jazz guard Collin Sexton, for reference, has attempted 162 free throws – 11 more than Brunson – despite taking 769 shots at the rim this season, almost 400 fewer shots at the rim than the Knicks’ star guard.
“I don’t want to give too much away, but I felt like he was getting hit a lot, right?” » Thibodeau said after the match. “But the best thing about him is that he never complains. He doesn’t cry. He’s going to continue and focus on shooting, which he did.
“So without losing his game, he just kept going, but to drive the ball as many times as he did, and the fact that he was trapped, they were chasing him, they were hitting him, and he only had four .free throws, but that’s what I like about him.
“He’s tenacious, he can understand, he knows how the game is going, he knows he’s on the road, it’s going to be difficult, and that doesn’t slow him down. He does not allow himself to be influenced by the authorities.”
Brunson accounted for 42 of the Knicks’ 98 points. Players not named Brunson shot just 20 of 58, or 34 percent, from the field and 6 of 29, or 20.7 percent from three-point range.
The Knicks beat a fast-paced Kings offense with a relentless defensive effort. For the fifth straight game, the Knicks held an opponent to fewer than 100 points.
Doing it against a top-10 Sacramento team averaging 118 points per game makes the Knicks contenders, giving Randle and Robinson a base for the playoffs when the pair of missing stars on the court make a triumphant return to injury.
The Knicks held the Kings to just 17 points in the fourth quarter. They also held Sacramento All-Star center Domantas Sabonis, who finished with 21 points and 14 rebounds, scoreless in the entire fourth quarter.
The Knicks held Sabonis to just two assists, seven fewer than his season average of nine per game.
Sabonis’ mission rested entirely on Hartenstein’s shoulders, and he answered the bell with 14 rebounds and four blocks late Saturday night.
It took a total team effort to neutralize the Kings star in the fourth quarter.
“You must defend all aspects of [his] game,” Thibodeau said of the Kings’ star center after the game. “He running on the court, him leading the break, him in the post, him on the dribble, him on a pick-and-pop, him in the pocket. [making a play after he receives the ball following a pick-and-roll]. And I thought that each of them had to be able to make a second and third effort because it wasn’t just him.
More importantly, the Knicks got rid of the proverbial monkey.
Saturday night’s win bucks a trend the team started by struggling to earn wins against teams with winning records.
The Knicks entered the Kings game with a 15-24 record against teams currently boasting records above .500.
They are now 4-1 in their last five games against these teams. Not bad for a Knicks team that is still awaiting the return of two workhorses on the court.
New York has two games left against Western Conference championship contenders on the West Coast: at Golden State against Stephen Curry‘s Warriors on Monday, then to the Mile-High City to face the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets, led by two-time MVP. Nikola Jokic.
If Brunson continues to play at the world level, there is no team not named the Boston Celtics and the Knicks are not up to par this season.
The first-time All-Star is averaging 27.2 points and 6.5 assists on 47.5 percent shooting from the field, and his 29.2 points per game since trading Anunoby on December 31 rank fifth only behind opposing superstars: Joel EmbiidDallas’ Luka Doncic, Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Oklahoma City’s Gilgeous-Alexander.
If he can maintain this pace, the Knicks have a legitimate chance to climb further in the Eastern Conference standings.
If Brunson can continue to manipulate defenses the same way he manipulated the Kings rookie on a decisive possession, the Knicks are suddenly a team to avoid in the first round of the playoffs.
And that’s without counting two of their starting players in the frontcourt: an All-Star playmaker and a candidate for defensive player of the year.
Suddenly, the Knicks look scary.
