Captain Crunch

Jalen Brunson - yet again - saved his best for last, and saved the Knicks in the process.

Good morning! Nothing like a stress free win over a bad team, amirite?

Game 58: Knicks 110, Sixers 105

• With Karl-Anthony Towns sidelined, Mikal Bridges took charge out of the gate with his best scoring quarter of the season, netting 19 points in the first.

• While the lead briefly rose to 19 in the second, the Knicks couldn’t put the Sixers away, and Philly started to chip away in the third quarter.

• Stretches of stagnant, sloppy offense and late heroics by Tyrese Maxey and Paul George gave the Sixers a four-point lead with two and a half minutes remaining.

• Jalen Brunson took over down the stretch, scoring nine straight Knick points and 14 in the fourth en route to a closer-than-it-should-have-been win.

• Ariel Hukporti started for KAT and played well, especially on defense, but left in the third with a knee sprain.

Well that was an adventure.

Coming off a disastrous weekend that left many of us wondering how much the rest of the regular season was really going to matter, the Knicks managed to make sure we were heavily invested in the outcome of this one right down to the final buzzer

And they did so as only they can.

Facing a Philadelphia 76ers team that had lost eight straight and came into the Garden like a group of dead men walking, New York started out looking like a team that wanted to prove a point. With a rookie starting in place of their All-Star center, there was a lot to be encouraged about on both ends of the court as the defense held Philly to 36 percent shooting in the first and Mikal Bridges looked like a different player from the one who largely disappeared in Cleveland and Boston.

But as has been the case several times this season, a possible blowout slowly morphed into the sort of nail-biter it had no business being.