Knicks 140, Pistons 110: An enjoyable win
Before the schedule turns tricky again, the Knicks took care of business in destroying Detroit.
It very likely won’t be this year. It still likely won’t be next year. But some year in the future, the Detroit Pistons will return to their old glory days of competing for championships. And when that day comes, some Pistons fan will post on Twitter – or whatever the replacement social network is by then – something along the lines of “If you weren’t with us then, don’t support us now.”
That is to say: tonight’s Pistons team wasn’t one that would necessarily inspire confidence. A Knick loss would have felt just about inexcusable. They didn’t exactly face Chauncey, Rip, and Sheed. Killian Hayes may have an afro, but no one’s mistaking him for Ben Wallace.
And yet: New York was only favored by four points over Detroit in Detroit, on a night the Knicks won by 30, 140-110.
It was a night when, for his birthday, Julius Randle gave a gift: a time-machine performance throwing back to his now-distant All-NBA season. Randle finished with 36/7/5 and a +36 in just 31 minutes, playing with an infectious confidence and aggressiveness offensively; from essentially the opening tip he was ready to shoot – luckily, accurately -- on nearly every possession. He played with palpable hustle defensively, even in transition, his Achilles heel.
While his night started with him raining threes from above the break, his approach diversified as the game went on and the Pistons adjusted. In the second quarter, he began attacking the rim with ease, using his strength to bully the likes of Isaiah Stewart and Jalen Duren. At one point, he dunked on Stewart so hard in transition that he got some, well, pushback.
By the second half, Randle was mixing in the midrange game as well, another counter. However, those few midrange attempts felt more natural than those of years past. They weren’t the back-down-turn-around-I-think-I’m-Melo type, spinning away from the double team when he could have swung it to the weak side. Instead, he took smooth one-jab pullups, or rose up after a defender went under a screen.
I’ll say it: it was a true pleasure to watch Randle play tonight. It’s been a rare sight since his likely-aberration year, but at the same time both quietly and increasingly apparently a more common sight this season than last. Notwithstanding his often let’s say effortless defense, Randle’s 59.1% true shooting and 3.17 turnovers per 36 are the best marks of his four-year Knick career, which has felt like four different Knick careers in one. His 3-point percentage is up a few ticks, too, to above his Knick career average. That’s not something to ignore – even if the only endgame is a somewhat-greased trade market.
Randle wasn’t the only Knick with a knack, either. The night’s second fiddle was Quentin Grimes, who had a season-high 16 points alongside a game-high +37. Everyone knows by now about Grimes’s point-of-attack defense and quick-trigger, high-release 3-point shooting, but in limited time this season maybe his most apparently impressive skill is his natural playmaking off the drive. He finished with just two assists, but that undersells the can’t-count-on-one-hand slick drop-offs, wraparounds, and lobs he was continually pulling out of his bag after getting his defender in the air at the 3-point line. Grimes looks more and more the part of a seamless fit next to Jalen Brunson in the starting lineup, today and tomorrow, and makes his injury (and non-injury) status thus far this season all the more perplexing.
So, a blip on the radar? Poor opponent? Hot shooting night? Maybe. Maybe all three; heck, the starters actually had a better plus-minus than the bench! But that’s why they play the games. A mostly resistanceless win with numerous nice performances kept minutes down and morale up, both much-needed going into tomorrow’s second end of a back-to-back in Milwaukee. Whether this game serves as a springboard or a lone birthday outlier, it was an enjoyable night in the midst of a mostly lost couple of seasons.
Notes
Interesting move by Tom Thibodeau to start with Grimes on the 6-foot-7, 226-pound Bojan Bogdanović, as opposed to the point-of-attack role he generally thrives in. Ostensibly, that would be the kind of matchup you’d hope RJ Barrett would be perfect for; perhaps it could be interpreted as something of a vote of non-confidence in Barrett.
Immanuel Quickley had a few nice-looking finishes in the second half when he started really attacking the basket. I’ve long believed that a version of IQ with consistent rim pressure and finishing is a no-doubt All Star, so nice to see the aggressiveness and good results.
Derrick Rose looked like he had a bit more pep in his step than he has most of this season, getting to the rim, anticipating the defense with his passes and spraying the corners with timely dishes. Maybe it was something of a revenge game for that Dennis Smith Jr. trade.
It didn’t happen for any real extended stretches, but Thibs once again went with a Randle/Obi Toppin frontcourt pairing in the second quarter, a seemingly much more common occurrence this season. The biggest thing I noticed: in this setup, Brunson simply got to the rack at will, easily getting by his man to the cup multiple times, including a nice and-one.
Barrett ended up with a solid boxscore, outsourcing his shot attempts with zero turnovers and a +32, but it still didn’t feel like a great game from him. Maybe that’s just wearing last-few-weeks-colored glasses, but any time a player gets toasted on closeouts by Kevin Knox multiple times in the same game, it’s a problem. RJ’s almost mind-blowingly poor touch up close continues to be an issue; at one point he airballed a floater from within the restricted area, which was not his only miss near the basket. The positive side: I’m really not worried about his outside shooting, and the positive signs continued tonight; 2/5 from 3-point range, plus 6/8 from the line, which is actually a tad below his career-best 77% at the line. The effort and transition defense was a cut above some of his recent games as well.
