Basketball is a game of runs. To defeat the 2021 NBA champions and walk off the Madison Square Garden floors with a 2-0 record against the Denver Nuggets, the Knicks had to withstand a few of them.
But they did, and now the Knicks can call themselves the hottest team in basketball, extending their winning streak to five games with a 122-112 victory the Nuggets on Wednesday.
The victory required the Knicks to play one of their most complete games of the season — because the Nuggets don’t go away. You have to put them away, and the Knicks did just that on Wednesday night.
It’s been the constant in each of the Knicks’ last three games — a 143-120 victory over the Sacramento Kings, Monday’s blowout of the West’s second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, and now a second win this season against Denver.
The Knicks aren’t just answering the bell against winning teams the second half of the season — they’re using their defense to create easy transition opportunities, fending off opponents’ opportunities to go on an extended run.
Maybe it’s resilience.
The Knicks have a lot of it. So do their opponents through a gauntlet of a schedule through the remainder of the regular season.
If the Nuggets were the kind of team that laid down, Wednesday’s game would have been over in the first quarter, after the Knicks jumped out to an 18-6 lead five minutes into the opening period.
But the Nuggets tied the game with 8:41 to go in the second. They did so largely without Nikola Jokic, the potential soon-to-be four-time league Most Valuable Player who picked up two fouls in the first two minutes of the game.
With him on the bench, Denver turned to star guard Jamal Murray, who torched the Knicks defense for 33 points on 13-of-25 shooting from the field.
Jokic finished with 17 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists in 33 minutes but did most of his damage from downtown, where he shot 3-of-7 behind the arc.
“Where do you wanna start? Just everything. He’s a 7-footer with great touch, an unbelievable passer. Great understanding of the game, thinks on his feet. Makes them play fast,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Denver’s MVP ahead of tipoff on Wednesday. “There’s no holes in his game, really. The ability to make everyone around him a lot better, as well. And he plays to win.”
The Knicks extended their lead back out to nine with 3:45 in the second quarter, but the Nuggets roared back in the second half, taking an eight-point lead of their own with 7:11 left in the third quarter.
Thibodeau knew the challenge all along. The Nuggets are the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference and are among the threats to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals out West not only because of Jokic’s individual greatness, but because this is a team that doesn’t take possessions off. They take advantage of even the slightest mishaps, but the Knicks kept them to a minimum, turning the ball over just five times to 14 giveaways for Denver.
“Just be consistent. You have to play all 48 minutes against them. I think every aspect of your defense will be tested,” Thibodeau said ahead of tipoff. “There are times where you defend them perfectly and they’re still going to make. And that’s the mental part of it — to keep coming back time after time, and then offensively you have to execute.”
Jalen Brunson finished with 30 points and 15 assists, and OG Anunoby scored 23 points and hit five 3s for the second time this season against the Nuggets.
Anunoby is averaging 22.5 points over his last four games.
“Just stepping into my shots with confidence,” he said after the game. “[And] my teammates trusting me and finding me when I’m open.”
The Knicks are now 3-0 against Western Conference opponents stopping through Madison Square Garden to start this mid-January stretch.
Next up, they host LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday before a Monday showdown with the No. 3-seeded Houston Rockets.