Winning Ugly

The Knicks did what they had to do - barely - to scrape out a win against their cross-town rivals.

Good morning.

Of course that game went like that.

Game 45: Knicks 99, Nets 95

• Ooof.

• After a hot start, New York’s seriousness began to wane and the Nets led after one.

• An eight-point halftime advantage never ballooned into a blowout thanks to nine Brooklyn offensive rebounds in the third quarter.

• The fourth quarter began as the ultimate slog, with the Knicks making just one field goal in the first nine minutes, but turned into a fun back and forth in the final minutes, with Jalen Brunson making just enough clutch shots to win it.

• The rotation stayed at nine, with another fun KAT + subs stint, but Landry Shamet rode the pine in the second half, perhaps due to Brooklyn’s board work.

• Thibs subbed offense for defense on the penultimate Nets possession, but Precious was late getting to Cam Johnson, who got a better look than he should have had from deep to take the lead. Thankfully, it missed.

• Towns said afterwards this his finger injury is impacting his jumper.

Fun fact about this newsletter: the way I get the game tape that I turn into GIF’s is by screen recoding from my laptop. With the Gotham Sports app and ESPN/ABC, this isn’t an issue, but for some reason, TNT doesn’t permit it. When I fire up my screen recorder and hit the red button, the screen just goes black.

Usually, this makes my life much more difficult, as I’m left to scour social media for clips of big plays, like I did with the key Josh Hart rebound clipped above.

Last night though? Any and all recordings of that slop-fest should be burned to the ground.

This was the 2.0 version of the post-Thanksgiving win the Knicks had in Charlotte, right down to the final score. The Hornets game ended at 99-98 thanks to a meaningless Charlotte 3-pointer that went in at the buzzer. The only difference here was the Brooklyn’s meaningless last second 3-point attempt hit iron. Otherwise, it was a carbon copy.

Consider that these teams combined for 84 second half points, including a fourth quarter where the combined point total (35) nearly equalled the combined shooting percentage (35.5). To Springfield, this tape will not be traveling.

But a win is a win is a win, and on the second night of a back to back, the Knicks will take it.