Get Well Game

It may not have solved all of their issues, but the Knicks took care of business against some old friends.

Good morning! Sometimes a win feels a little extra necessary than other times, and last night certainly qualified. A pleasant reprieve before the OKC rematch tomorrow.

Before I move on, a VERY special KFS Announcement that is especially relevant to fans of our film gurus, Benjy Ritholtz and DJ Zullo. Starting today, KFS is offering the Jalen Brunson Patreon tier. For $11 a month, you’ll get:

• All Melo Tier content (a bonus weekly pod featuring me with Benjy and/or DJ, plus an ad-free version of the regular podcast)

• Bonus Benjy content, including his expanded Grade-book after games and longform articles, like the one he just posted about KAT’s passing

• Bonus DJ content, including extended editions of KFS Film Sessions and an X's & O's Mailbag with questions exclusively from Patrons

Feel free to join for a month and give it a test drive. Benjy and DJ are the best at what they do, and I’m incredibly excited to talk shop with them on a weekly pod from here on in. Hope you’ll be listening.

Game 38: Knicks 112, Raptors 98

• The threes were again hard to come by in the first half, but New York’s offense looked noticeably better with KAT back

• The defense got stonger as the game went on

• OG lit up his former team from deep

• The Knicks put the clamps on and lengthened a four-point halftime lead to 26 midway through the fourth quarter

• The starters still played a lot, but not as many as they could have, as Thibs pulled everyone with a few minutes to go.

Was it perfect?

No.

But for a Knicks team that came in having dropped three straight, perfect was the enemy of the good, and New York was plenty good enough beat an inferior opponent on a night they desperately needed a win.

Not that it was easy. Much like their last two first halves against the Bulls and Magic, you got the sense going into halftime that the Knicks would regret not building more than a four-point advantage over the lowly Raptors. Over those first 24 minutes, we saw some of the same pock marks that have defined their recent poor play. With a few exceptions, they remained cold from outside, and there were too many easy offensive possessions for a Toronto team short on high-end talent. On top of that, they turned it over 10 times in the first half, predictably leading to some of Toronto’s easiest points of the night. A late 8-0 run by the Raptors saw the offense get stuck in the mud yet again.

But it wasn’t all bad out of the gate, with the biggest difference between yesterday and Monday’s slog being the presence of one Karl-Anthony Towns.