Then he stayed in front of Butler and took the ball away … That’s when Grimes, the other guy who played all 48 minutes, made the biggest defensive play of the game.Īfter banging knees with Bam Adebayo on a screen, he limped back into the play … The Knicks’ lead was again six points with a little less than two minutes left. ![]() Mental toughness, physical toughness, ability to think on his feet, ability to lead, ability to connect with people, bring the best out of people. “What can you say about the guy? He’s just incredible, all-around player. He conditions himself to play big minutes. He never has to adjust in a game because of the way he prepares himself. He does it in our gym, does it all summer long. “I’ve never seen anyone work the way he does. “The thing I love about him is you prepare yourself for that,” Thibodeau said. Thibodeau is a defense-first coach and Brunson can be a defensive liability, but the former was about as effusive as a coach can be about his star player in the aftermath of an exhausting and exhaustive performance. “This time of year you’re going to see guys get big minutes.” “If he needed a blow he would have told me,” Thibodeau said. And he still had gas in the tank in the fourth quarter, hitting two of the biggest shots of the night, a pick-and-roll pull-up 3-pointer to put the Knicks up seven with 7:30 left and an isolation pull-up jumper that put them up six with 4:10 remaining. The Knicks’ star played all 48 minutes on Wednesday, rewarding his coach with a game-high 38 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. Through Game 4, the Knicks had been outscored by 21 points ( 29.1 per 100 possessions) in 30 minutes with Brunson off the floor.Ĭoach Tom Thibodeau’s solution for that problem was to never take Brunson off the floor. It’s also been shorthanded, with Kia Sixth Man of the Year runner-up Immanuel Quickley missing the last two games. The New York bench, which was terrific in the regular season, has not been good in this series. Here are some notes, numbers and film from a game that had New York fans chanting “Knicks in 7!” as they exited Madison Square Garden … The Heat had cut a 19-point Knicks lead down to two, but New York would not let their season die, and they sent the series back to Miami with a a 112-103 victory. Jalen Brunson scored 10 of his team’s 28 points in the final period, while Quentin Grimes came up with the biggest defensive play of the night. And despite the lack of rest, they each came up big in the fourth quarter. With the New York Knicks’ season on the line, their two starting guards played all 48 minutes of Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night. NEW YORK - When you’re facing elimination, there can be no holding back. He went through a workout before the game, but the Knicks ruled him out about 45 minutes before the start.Playing all 48 minutes, Jalen Brunson scores 38 points and New York withstands Miami's late run to stave off elimination. He reinjured his ankle in Game 5 against Cleveland after missing the final five games of the regular season and hadn't done much since the Knicks returned to practice. Getting Randle back would be a good start. ![]() The Knicks won the last three of those but have work to do if they're going to take this one. ![]() “He reassured me that he wasn’t going to be a liability and he wanted to stay in there and make sure we get this win,” Spoelstra said.īutler gave the Heat a good start in a renewal of what was once a fierce rivalry, with the teams meeting four straight years from 1997-2000. He did plenty of other things they needed, including staying in the game after getting hurt with 5:05 to play, remaining on the court for a while and then limping to the bench during a timeout before coming back out to shoot the free throws. They did it without needing the type of huge performances Butler delivered in the first round, when he scored 56 and 42 points in the final two games. They gradually narrowed the deficit before halftime, blew by the Knicks with a 21-5 run in the third quarter and pulled away to a double-digit lead in the fourth. The Heat fell behind by 12 points in the second quarter, but that wasn’t going to faze a team that eliminated deficits of 15 and then 16 points in the last two games against Milwaukee.
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