Winning Ugly

A win is a win...right? What to make of a victory that was much closer than it should have been, and how worried we should all be about the struggles of Mikal Bridges.

Good morning! Thank goodness we didn’t have to regurgitate our stuffing yesterday. Let’s talk about an ugly win that was, at the very least, better than the alternative.

Game 19: Knicks 99, Hornets 98

• The Knicks again struggled to score out of the gate against a switching defense, putting up just 15 first quarter points for the second game in a row.

• They began slow and sloppy, committing 13 first half turnovers and 21 in total.

• Thanks mostly to an undermanned Hornets squad missing LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges, Tre Man and their top two centers, New York’s foibles never resulted in anything more than a 10-point first half deficit.

• The defensive intensity ratcheted up after halftime and Jalen Brunson led the way as they surged in the final minutes behind several big shots from the Captain.

• Mikal Bridges struggled again and was benched for the final eight minutes.

When New York’s schedule was released over the summer, this was one of those “uh oh” games you immediately circled.

Day after Thanksgiving, fifth game of a road trip, coming back from four straight on the West Coast, and a noon start to top it off. A recipe for disaster for a group of vets against a young team with notions.

But then the Dallas game happened - a pre-Thanksgiving dud by any metric - followed by an injury report that contained more rotation Hornets than they had left in uniform. The fears of a let down momentarily subsided. Surely they would take care of business here.

Nope.