Josh Hart hoped the Knicks would take care of business early Sunday against an overmatched opponent.
It didn’t work out like that.
Facing the G-League version of the Golden State Warriors, the Knicks climbed out of a 21-point hole to pull off a nail-biter Sunday night at MSG, 110-107.
It ended finally with an ugly turnover by Golden State center Quinten Post, who couldn’t handle a pass on the perimeter and gave it up to Landry Shamet.
Before that, Shamet and OG Anunoby connected on clutch free throws in the final 20 seconds — going 4-for-4.
“If you’re in a situation like this, you never want to play with a game or anything like that because you never [know] what’ll happen at the end of a game,” Hart said before tipoff. “You don’t want to put yourself in that position for someone to make a shot, someone to miss a shot. A ref to call a call you don’t agree with. So we got to approach this like any other game. And if that’s the case, then we should handle business early and it should be a game where everybody gets to play.”
Again, it didn’t work out like that. But the Knicks (44-25) still found a way. Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 30 points, shooting 9-for-20 while going 10-for-10 from the foul line. He knocked down an important pull-up with 65 seconds left. Jordan Clarkson was again a spark off the bench, dropping 14 points in 22 minutes.
Mikal Bridges continued his season to forget while managing just 21 minutes and getting benched in crunch time for Shamet.
The Warriors weren’t just shorthanded. They were short an entire lineup. Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, Kristaps Porzingis, Al Horford and Seth Curry were all out.
Their starting lineup resembled a G-League outfit — Malevy Leons, Gui Santos, Brandin, Podziemski, Post, and Will Richard.
The Knicks, meanwhile, were at full strength outside of Miles McBride, who continues to recover from hernia surgery.
They were also coming off a five-game road trip and clearly unfocused.
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Within three minutes of the second quarter, the Knicks were trailing by 21. They were missing shots, committing turnovers. The Warriors were on fire.
But order was soon restored. Golden State started missing in the second quarter. The Knicks were better at taking care of the ball. By the end of the third quarter, they retook the lead.
It followed a similar trajectory of the previous two Knicks wins, both against bad teams (the Jazz and Pacers). The Knicks struggled early but found their footing before pulling it out in the fourth quarter.
“Situations like this, we faced it in Utah, we faced it to a certain degree in Indiana, they’re tough. But if you expect to be who you think you are at the end of the day you will approach this in a businesslike manner,” coach Mike Brown said. “The biggest thing is making sure you don’t skip any details. I think in games like this, the details or the small things are huge. And playing with a sense of urgency while making them feel you on both ends of the floor — that doesn’t mean going out and blowing them out, but if you’re lackadaisical at any point in the game for any stretch, they’re NBA players. A lot of these guys are hungry and some of them have proven that they belong on this level and in a pretty good spot in terms of a rotation. If you relax at any moment in time and they see one, two, three go in, like the guys did in Utah, it can be a climb back up the hill to get back in the game.”
The Knicks climbed and survived — barely.
