This time, Jalen Brunson hit the shot.
Two nights after his potential game-winner bounced in and out, Brunson’s trey with six seconds remaining beat the Nets, 124-122, on Friday night and avoided an epic Knicks collapse at MSG.
Mikal Bridges, the former Net traded across the bridge for a boatload of picks, followed with a game-saving rejection on a layup attempt by Dennis Schroder and the Knicks wildly celebrated a victory that became way too close for comfort.
“That’s sort of the nature of the league,” Tom Thibodeau said, referencing Brunson’s miss against the Bulls on Wednesday. “That disappointment and then to bounce back to find a way to win at the end speaks volumes to who he is. To have the resolve to take that shot and make that shot. … To have the courage to do it again, it says a lot about the team.”
With Karl-Anthony Towns injured, spectator Tom Brady tossing footballs into the crowd during a timeout and the court looking like a sunset to commemorate the NBA Cup, the Knicks led for all but 11.5 seconds of the final 37 minutes.
That’s when the Nets, who recovered from a 21-point deficit, took a one-point lead on Schroder’s 3-pointer.
Brunson responded on the next possession by squaring up on Nets defender Dorian Finney-Smith and igniting the crowd with his cool trey. Without a timeout, the Nets drove immediately after Brunson’s shot and Bridges chased down Schroder for the biggest play of his short Knicks career.
“People are putting pressure on him to be perfect,” Josh Hart said. “The beauty of Mikal is he’s going to get out there and find ways to impact the game if he’s not making shots. So we’re happy for him. Got traded for five [players who aren’t in the NBA yet] so we’re good.”
Bridges, who the Knicks acquired from the Nets in the summer for a boatload of draft picks, dropped an efficient 22 points in 41 minutes, easing the criticism, though certainly not silencing it, about his rough start in Manhattan.
Bridges also did nothing for most of the fourth quarter, pulling a Houdini until that final game-saving block on Schroder.
The victory required clutch buckets from Brunson, who finished with 37 points in 34 minutes — including 16 points in the fourth quarter. And it needed a strong showing from OG Anunoby, the top player of this young Knicks season who controversially fouled out.
Anunoby defended Brooklyn’s top scorer, Cam Thomas, and scored 25 points with eight boards.
Anunoby also was the target of a furious shove by Finney-Smith, who took issue with the Knicks forward’s physical attempt to get through a screen early in the fourth quarter.
Finney-Smith tossed Anunoby to the ground, then squared up like he was ready to fight. The referees settled on a double technical and the Nets started a run that led to the thrilling finish.
“Don’t get me started,” Thibodeau said before launching into a critique of the officiating.
The Knicks are 2-0 in the NBA Cup with wins over Philly and Brooklyn.
Towns was a late DNP after being listed as questionable because of a knee contusion he sustained two nights prior against the Bulls, when Brunson missed the big shot.
Miles McBride was also absent because of an illness, forcing the Knicks to adjust the starting lineup for the first time this season by putting Jericho Sims at center.
So the Knicks were shorthanded but the Nets are supposedly short on skill.
The visitors from the outer borough, built to tank, started fine behind a red-hot Thomas, who dropped 19 of his 43 points in the first quarter.
Without Towns or McBride, Thibodeau went deep into his bench.
He even played three rookies — Ariel Hukporti, Tyler Kolek and Pacome Dadiet — at the same time for a decent stretch in the second and fourth quarters. Hukporti, the second-round pick, took most of the center minutes from Sims and finished with four blocks.
The Knicks escaped.
“We’re trying to find it,” Hart said. “And sometimes when you’re trying to find it, it doesn’t come as quickly as you want. You can get frustrated and those frustrations affect your energy level, those kind of things. We’ve just got to understand at the end of the day we’re not going to be the best we’re going to be in game 10 or game 12. That’s not the goal. The goal is to be the best team we can be in the last game of the season. Hopefully that’s in June, obviously. We can’t get too frustrated with it.
“We know it’s going to take time. The benefit, at least right now, the benefit of the East is that we’ve been trash this first 11 games and I think we’re fourth in the standings. So East got beat up a little bit early. I guess that’s the benefit to us.”
