Fighting Fire with Fire

The Knicks punched back.

Good morning! Hope everyone had a nice weekend. Great to be back on the winning track.

Game 26: Knicks 100, Magic 91

• This one started ugly, with a bunch of New York turnovers and Orlando bricks in the first quarter.

• The Knicks started to find their groove in the second and maintained something around 10-point lead from the end of the first until the final buzzer.

• Jalen Brunson led the way with 31, fouling Jalen Suggs out of the game in the process.

• Karl-Anthony Towns went for 22, 22 & 5 in a team-high 43 minutes.

• Mikal Bridges’ defense was exceptional.

• Josh Hart provided a second half spark.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Take it from Iron Mike. The man knew what was up.

This quote, while not about the NBA, happened to be said at a time when the league was very different from the one we know today. Gone are the backyard brawls that played out on the court, often involving the team that played its home games at Madison Square Garden.

But even though commissioner litigated the harshest stuff out of the sport a long time ago, it’ll never be completely gone. As long as there’s rules, there will be teams who push the envelope, and this version of the Orlando Magic does it as well as anyone. Credit to them for making it part of their identity.

They might be the most blatant, but the Magic aren’t the only team who has tried to use physicality to their benefit this season. Lots of teams have taken advantage of how loosely the game is being called, and all of those teams seem to be doing quite a good job of flustering the New York Knicks.

Over the previous 25 games, plenty of opponents have taken the fight to New York and dared them to respond, with the latest being Atlanta last Wednesday night. As has often been the case with this new version of the roster, the Knicks didn’t respond as we might have hoped. Worse yet, they wilted, noticeably letting go of the rope for the first time this season.

So given Orlando’s reputation, you’d have been forgiven for approaching last night’s game with some amount of trepidation. You’d be forgiven even more for cursing at your tv screen after a first quarter in which New York had more turnovers (seven) than made field goals (six). Were it not for some abhorrent Orlando outside shooting, this would have been much worse than a tie game. Not quite the response anyone was hoping for.

And then, maybe because they simply needed some time to adjust to the Magic’s helmet & pads brand of basketball, the Knicks got tired of being pushed around.

There wasn’t a single moment that did it. No one play or stop or made basket that turned the tide.

But somewhere around the end of the first quarter, we started to see a version of this Knicks team that has been conspicuously absent since the summer. Unable to win this game with finesse, New York brought back some of the grit and toughness that defined last year’s squad. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Fittingly enough, it started with the man who was playing his 500th consecutive NBA game, and with the best point of attack defense we’ve seen from Mikal Bridges since he put on a Knicks uniform.

This version of Bridges is very much what the front office thought it was getting when they gave up all those draft assets to Brooklyn back in late June. He hounded Magic ball-handlers, usually Jalen Suggs, as they tried to navigate around one pick after another. He was liquid, moving through the offense with the greatest of ease.

There was a palpable confidence emitting from Mikal on both sides of the ball last night, and maybe more important than that, he sure seemed to be having fun out there.

But Mikal Bridges wasn’t the only guy who left his stamp on this win.

Since he became a Knick, Jalen Brunson has had the shit beaten out of him as consistently as any heavy usage ball-handler in the NBA. His coach has been complaining about it the whole time, once unleashing an epic rant that is as good as anything we’ve seen from Thibs as a head coach. All the while, Brunson rarely loses his cool, although one wonders if the results might change if he did.

Because we’ve become so used to that stoic demeanor, it was downright jarring to see his reaction after taking Jalen Suggs into the post for a big bucket midway through the fourth, and then even more notable that he refused to let Suggs get away with his thuggery, forcing the refs to blow the whistle later in the quarter and toss the former (current?) football player from the game with his sixth foul.

It was the sort of moment that we might wind up looking back on if this team can imitate a little more or Orlando’s brand of basketball from here on in (or maybe - dare I say - adopt it as their own).

For right now though, this was a heck of a bounce back from that unsightly second half against Atlanta. Time will tell if the lessons learned really sunk in, but in the meantime, third place in the East with the fifth best net rating in the league isn’t the worst place to be.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Josh Hart: I didn’t love how he played in the first half, particularly on defense, but Hart came out with increased verve and vigor after halftime and seemed to have a hand in a lot of positive plays. He finished with a dozen points to go with five rebounds, five assists and four steals, including a massive one that led to a Deuce triple immediately after Hart checked in early in the fourth quarter when Orlando had cut the lead to seven.

⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: Finished with 31 points, which tied him with Clyde on the franchise leaderboard for most games scoring at least 30. Stick around another half decade or so and Big Pat might be in reach.

More impressively, Brunson drew 10 fouls on the Magic, including seven after halftime. His 3-ball continues to be as smooth as butter, and among the league’s 15 leading scorers, only Nikola Jokic and his own teammate KAT are shooting a higher percentage from deep.

(Shout out to Towns, by the way. Dude is the first Knick to have a 20/20 game - 22 & 22, to be precise - since Julius Randle over a year ago, but falls short of the podium because of a few too many silly plays. Good game overall though.)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Mikal Bridges: By the eye test, this was his best game as a Knick. Going to dive much deeper into his performance for tomorrow’s newsletter.

Final Thought

Heading into last night, Orlando was the final NBA team with an unblemished home record, having gone 10-0 with wins against the Nets, Pacers, Pelicans, Wizards, Hornets, Pacers again, Sixers, Pistons, Bulls and Suns. While not exactly a murderer’s row of opponents, 10 straight is 10 straight, so you’d think the home fans would have come out to support the cause for Win No. 11.

Nope. That arena was MSG south, and boy could you hear it whenever the Knicks did something good.

Most NBA fanbases would kill for a young group that competes on every possession like the Magic do. This one, not so much it seems.

Maybe more ladder skits for Puff the Magic Dragon are in order.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”