MVP Performance

On Saturday night, Jalen Brunson reminded everyone just how important he is to New York's title chances.

Good morning! We have a jam-packed newsletter for you today, including some Sunday roster news, but first let’s talk schedule for this week:

• Tomorrow: Normal newsletter with a Raps recap. As for the game, it’s a 7:30 pm tipoff, halftime link here. No word yet on whether RJ will play, as he’s missed the last two with an illness. My guess is that he suits up after he was a late scratch yesterday.

• Wednesday: a special Christmas edition from Ray Marcano. No halftime zoom.

• Thursday: No newsletter

• Friday: Spurs recap.

As a reminder, if anyone is still looking for a gift for that special Knicks fan in your life, feel free to give the gift of KFS right here:

News & Notes

🏀 The reinforcements have arrived.

Well, reinforcement.

After attacking his rehab from a dislocated shoulder suffered in the preseason, Landry Shamet is back on the Knicks on a newly signed one-year deal. To make room for Shamet on the roster and to stay under the second apron, New York waived Matt Ryan, who was on a non-guaranteed deal. If Ryan clears waivers, he’ll be eligible to re-sign with the Knicks on a two-way deal, which New York could open up by waiving Boo Buie.

This is certainly welcome news for a group that has played its starters more minutes than any team in the NBA. Shamet was clearly within Tom Thibodeau’s circle of trust in the preseason, playing as part of a four-man bench mob along with Deuce McBride, Cam Payne and Precious Achiuwa. While a theoretical three-guard alignment could leave the Knicks a little small, Towns’ presence should help on the boards and Shamet, like Deuce and Cam, is a pestering defender. He will fire threes at a higher rate than anyone on the team.

Even if its for 10-12 minutes a night, another warm body can’t hurt.

My guess as to how the rotation might look:

• Deuce and Precious/Sims will continue checking in for KAT and Hart midway through the first.

• New York will start the second with all three guards, Bridges, and Towns.

• Hart checks in for Bridges a few minutes into the second.

• Towns gets a breather before the end of the half

In a close game, I’d expect 24-26 minutes for Deuce and around a dozen for the other three subs.

We’ll see if I’m right soon enough.

🏀 The Westchester Knicks won their second straight G-League Winter Showcase, with Tyler Kolek winning MVP. He had 22 points, 11 assists and five rebounds in the final.

Game 28: Knicks 104, Pelicans 93

• The first half was defined by unsightly turnovers, bricked threes, hot Pels’ shooting, and three KAT fouls that limited him to 10 minutes. Despite those issues, New York was within four at the half.

• The Knicks weren’t ready to start the third and the lead ballooned to 14.

• Jalen Brunson took charge, scoring 29 of his 39 after halftime, including a scintillating stretch of the third where he could not be stopped.

• Thibs kept the rotation tight, running all five starters the entire third quarter and keeping Bridges and Hart on the court for the entire second half.

• Jericho Sims replaced an ineffective Precious Achiuwa in the rotation after halftime.

We’re not quite in uncharted territory, but we’re about as close as you can get.

For 69 years, the NBA has been voting for the MVP award in some form or fashion. First it was done by the players, and then in 1981, voting shifted over to the media.

Over that time, we’ve seen two Knicks finish in the top 10 only three times, and two of them deserve a pretty big asterisk.

It first happened in 1957, which was the second year of voting for the award. It seems like the players didn’t yet quite grasp the implication that “value” should probably translate to winning, as seven of the league’s eight teams had at least one player represented in the final tally. That included the last place Knicks, who had three players - Harry Gallatin, Kenny Sears and Ray Felix - finish in in a five-way tie for eighth, garnering one vote apiece.

The most recent time two Knicks finished in the top 10 was in 2021. Julius Randle was a deserving eighth, but was joined in the top 10 by a Knick whose appearance in the final voting rolls was a surprise to just about everyone, including the media. Despite playing only 35 games in New York and coming off the bench for all but three of them, Derrick Rose received one first place vote for Most Valuable Player thanks to fan voting. Thanks to that one vote, he finished alone in ninth place, one spot behind Randle.

The middle time it happened (and one might argue the only time that the Knicks legitimately had two of the 10 most valuable players in the sport) unsurprisingly came in 1970, when New York would later hoist its first NBA championship trophy. Willis Reed won the award after finishing second to Wes Unseld a year earlier, while Walt Frazier finished fourth behind Jerry West and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

And that’s it…until, maybe, this season.

ESPN’s Tim Bontempts just released his first MVP straw poll on the ‘24-25 season, in which he polls 100 likely MVP voters and asks for their top five finishers after a third of the season. Low and behold, Knicks occupy two of the top 10 spots:

Needless to say, this is pretty freakin’ cool. The formula for winning an NBA title has traditionally been said to begin with two top-10 players. Sign me up, please.

It’s also not a surprise that two Knicks made the list. There are three players in the league currently averaging at least 24 points, shooting at least 49 percent from the field and hitting at least 44 percent of their threes: the guy leading the above straw poll, plus Towns and Brunson. Given New York’s 18-10 record (16-10 at the time of the voting), third place spot in the standings and overall statistical profile (record-breaking offense, top-five net rating), they deserve to have two of the top 10 guys, especially when some other good teams like Memphis, Houston and Orlando don’t have an obvious candidate for one reason or another.

What could be considered a surprise, however, is the order of finish. Towns wound up in seventh, garnering 11 fifth place votes and one fourth place vote, while Brunson ended up in ninth, getting five fifth place votes.

On the surface, you can see the logic. Through a third of the season, KAT has done wonders to improve his iffy reputation upon coming to the Knicks, cutting down on the silly fouls and questionable decisions that seemingly defined him since he entered the league. While his defense remains something to be managed rather than a strength, Mikal Bridges’ early struggles shifted the narrative away from Towns, whose effort on that end has rarely been in question (and whose defensive metrics continue to improve). On top of all that, he’s leading the league in rebounds and having the best shooting season of an already sterling career.

On the flip sode, while the counting stats and advanced metrics for Jalen have both been excellent, at the time of the polling, his resume was short on the sort of defining performances he seemed to put up on a weekly basis last season. The closest he’s come was the game-winner against the Nets on a night he finished with a then-season high 37 points. After that, it’s been more subtle achievements, like dishing 17 assists in a blowout win in Denver or scoring 24 points on eight shots in a defeat of the Hornets. Watching him every night, we’ve seen a playmaking leap, but that has resulted in only 0.9 more assists per game, while his scoring average is down by nearly four points.

This is where things stood ahead of Saturday night, when the Knicks went into New Orleans for what figured to be an easy victory against a team that had won three times in 56 days.

But you know what they say about best laid plans.

Following a Dejounte Murray 3-pointer with 6:50 to go in the third quarter, the Knicks found themselves down 13 points, one off their largest deficit of the game from a few minutes earlier.

What happened next was nothing short of spectacular.

Crack open a can, Jalen

Over the next 12 minutes (11 minutes and 54 seconds, to be exact), Brunson was the driving force behind a 27-point turnaround. The Knicks outscored the Pelicans 41-14, with JB scoring 25 points and assisting on six more for a total of 29 - one more than New Orleans scored for the entire remainder of the game.

No one player can ever truly beat another team single-handedly, but Brunson came about as close as humanly possible to doing so.

This triple - Brunson’s fourth make on four attempts in under four minutes - gave the Knicks their first lead since 19-17. They never trailed again.

You had a feeling it might go this way by the end of the first half. In the final minute before halftime, Jalen Brunson was fouled on what appeared to be a clear and-one, only for the ref to waive off the shot and call a foul on the floor.

The head coach was none too pleased, although this rant was good enough to get our Autograph Signature Moment of the Game.

But instead of firing up the team for the third quarter, they came out of halftime half asleep. Karl-Anthony Towns followed up the game of his life with the game of his nightmares, New York missed 16 of their first 21 looks from deep, and the road team committed 15 turnovers in the first 28 minutes of action.

This was one of those games that defines an MVP candidate. Sometimes your team just doesn’t have it and needs you to lift them up and carry them home. Thankfully, Jalen Brunson’s shoulders are as broad as the Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s hard to know how much his refuse-to-lose attitude inspired those around him, but after he started doing his thing, the defense started doing theirs. OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart were relentless, combining for eight steals and contributing to several more of the Pel’s 19 total turnovers, which tied the second highest total for the Knicks this season. Similarly, Jericho Sims came into the game like he was shot out of a canon, supplanting Precious Achiuwa after the latter had an uninspiring first half.

(One nice thing about having so many bigs? Eventually you’ll find one that’s having a good night.)

As New York closed out what wound up being a fairly anticlimactic fourth quarter, I had to wonder how many of those voters would change the order of their votes if they had a do over. I guess we’ll find out when the next edition of the straw poll comes out in a few months.

For now though, the Knicks undoubtedly have a couple of horses in the race. My guess? Brunson keeps rising up the ranks and makes a strong case to join Willis and Pat as the third Knick ever with multiple top-five MVP finishes.

Maybe we’ll look back on Saturday as the night his campaign officially kicked into high gear.

💫 Stars of the Game 💫

⭐️ Jericho Sims: The roller coaster ride for Mr. Sims continues. From eyesore to eye-popper to out of the rotation entirely, Sims is back again, playing vital minutes in Saturday’s win.

Even though he didn’t attempt a shot, Sims’ fingerprints were all over this one, with eight boards in just 13 minutes, good screening for Jalen Brunson, and a robust presence at the rim.

A third of the way through the season, it seems as if the big man rotation is still very much up for grabs.

⭐️ ⭐️ Mikal Bridges: The defense just keeps getting better, and the offense is around where we might have expected before the season.

Last nine games: 21.7 points, 56.4 percent shooting, 43.8 percent from deep, and an NBA leading +149.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Jalen Brunson: Sorry to Jalen that his beloved Eagles dropped a heartbreaker to the Commanders yesterday (congrats Josh, you got yourself quite the QB there), but if its any consolation, he’s a third of the way to joining some very special company.

In the near half century long 3-point era, only two players have finished the year averaging at least 25 points, shooting 50 percent from the field, shooting 40 percent from deep, and dishing seven dimes a night: Larry Bird in 1986-87, and LeBron James twice, in ‘12-13 and last season. Currently, Nikola Jokic is topping all those marks, while Brunson is nearly there, shooting 49.3 percent from the field.

What does this look like in real time? Like the opposing team sending a double before you cross half-court:

The best just keeps getting better.

Final Thought

Gotta keep the intensity up tonight against a frisky Raptors team who has a bunch of young players that don’t know any better. No reason the Knicks can’t be 23-10 heading into the new year.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”