Despite enduring one battle after another against the severely shorthanded Golden State Warriors, the New York Knicks reigned supreme on Oscar night.
Reliable third acts from All-Stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns were enough to recover from a sleepy Sunday start, as the Knicks put up a 110-107 win in the metropolitan follow-up to a five-game road trip at Madison Square Garden.
With 30 points, Brunson reached a triple-decade for the first time in 13 games and for the 98th time in his New York career. Towns paired a dozen boards with 17 points, all but four earned in a second half, the Knicks won by 12 en route to moving a season-best 19 games over .500.
Sunday’s game was partly defined by who didn’t walk the blue carpet at MSG: Golden State was missing pretty much all of its headliners, including seven of its top eight scorers, the list headlined by Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.
A gritty effort would thus be required for the Warriors to escape from New York with a win and end a losing streak, and it partly manifested in an opening period in which both Brandin Podziemski and OG Anunoby bled. The latter, who took a Nate Williams hand to the face, had to venture to the locker room for maintenance on a leaking nose.
With the two-way threat out, the replacement Warriors made Curry and Green proud: they hit half of their first 16 three-point attempts, forced nine Knicks’ turnovers that produced a dozen points, and outrebounded the hosts by 10. A Quinten Post putback, set up by Will Richard intercepting the pass of a returning Anunoby, inflated the lead to a shocking 21 to the horror of the weekend crowd.
A late flurry on both sides of the ball, featuring seven Golden State turnovers and the resurgence of Anunoby (who hit a three and earned a clutch offensive board that set up a Brunson driving double), allowed the Knicks to end the frame on a 16-6 run over the last seven-plus minutes but even a buzzer-beater from Landry Shamet only reduced the gap to nine.
Fortunately for the Knicks (44-25), that output proved to be a preview of what was to come after intermission: a pair of Josh Hart rebounds (allowing him to share the team lead with Towns at 12) helped the Knicks instantly shrink the lead to four.
A Towns’ offensive foul allowed the Warriors to put up a mini-run that re-established the halftime lead, but they never made it back to double-figures after that. A runner from Mikal Bridges created the first of several long-sought ties with just under four minutes left, and Brunson gave the Knicks the lead with a layup about 100 seconds later.
Golden State briefly got the lead back, but Mitchell Robinson’s putback (part of another double-figure rebounding night) and Shamet’s steal-turned-layup gave the Knicks a three-point lead and seemingly infinite momentum.
But facing an opponent with relatively little to lose, the Knicks could not extend their lead beyond seven points amid a defensive crackdown, setting the stage for a thrilling finale. Jordan Clarkson managed to continue his recent resurgence, as he scored eight of his 14 points during the fateful final stanzas.
More clutch antics from Shamet helped seal the deal: his three-pointer with 3:24 left created a five-point lead, the only occasion where the advantage moved past four in the last 5:45.
Paired with Brunson’s two-point step back, the Knicks withstood tallies from Post, Gui Santos, and Gary Payton II before free throws from Shamet created a three-point lead in the latter part of the final minute, which turned the game into a free-throw contest. Though the Knicks didn’t foul on what became Golden State’s final possession, Brunson and Shamet united on the other end to rob Post and deny the Warriors even a potential equalizer.
New York and Golden State (32-35) thus split its yearly interconference couple for the fifth time in the last six seasons. Podziemski paced the visitors with 25 points, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a fifth consecutive loss and seventh over the last eight.
The Knicks remain stationed at home for their next game, a Saturday night showdown against the Indiana Pacers (7:30 p.m. ET, MSG).
