For the first time since 1973, the New York Knicks have won a major league-sanctioned trophy, riding a dominant fourth quarter to a 124-113 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night to win the NBA Cup in Las Vegas.
With the in-season tournament in just its third year of existence, the luster of this title is obviously lacking.
How long will this whole thing last? If it grows in popularity, we’ll look back on this in 10, 15 years and hold it in much higher reverence.
Answers for another day, but we still learned plenty about the Knicks, even in the vacuum that was Tuesday night.
This is just a “stepping stone”
File this one under the most obvious of statements. Teams don’t start their annual missions with the headline of “winning the NBA Cup.”
The ultimate goal is to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy, which is still something that has eluded the Knicks for 52, going on 53 years. But Tuesday night in a winner-take-all game against Victor Wembenyama and the Spurs is as good as a non-postseason dress rehearsal as New York can get.
When the lights were brightest, the Knicks showed their mettle. They outscored San Antonio 35-19 in the fourth quarter to overturn a five-point deficit entering the final stanza and break things open their way.
“It’s a goal of ours that we get to check off,” star guard Jalen Brunson, who dropped 25 points with eight assists. “It’s an important stepping stone for us. We can still learn from this game and get better, as well. I’m very thankful for the opportunity presented to ourselves… We’re going to enjoy this.”
The invaluable Mitchell Robinson
He is injury-prone, sometimes is lost amongst the bigger names on the roster, whether that be Brunson or Karl-Anthony Towns, or OG Anunoby, and is not going to give you 30 minutes per night on the floor.
But when he is on, when the stars align, center Mitchell Robinson is indispensable, a game-breaker, the quintessential immovable object.
That is exactly what he was in the NBA Cup Final.
Robinson played just 18 minutes with four points, but hauled down a staggering 15 rebounds, and 10 of them were on the offensive glass.
In a span of just 1:06 early in the fourth quarter, he pulled down five of those offensive rebounds — the final one of that run directly leading to a Jordan Clarkson three-pointer that put the Knicks up 97-94, capped off a 16-2 run between the third and fourth quarters, and provided a lead they would never relinquish.
He single-handedly out-rebounded the Spurs in the fourth quarter, hauling down eight boards compared to San Antonio’s six.
“He had 10 offensive rebounds in 18 minutes,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said. “That’s unbelievable. We had 23 offensive rebounds for the game. He had 10, OG had four, [Towns] had four. That was probably the biggest difference in the game when you’re scoring 32 second-chance points.”
Depth wins titles
Former head coach Tom Thibodeau’s greatest downfall was overworking his starting five and using tight rotations that simply ran out of gas in the playoffs.
Upon Brown’s introduction over the summer, he preached depth, then, with the help of Leon Rose, went out and got it. Dependable rotations help contending teams sustain greatness, and the Knicks’ depth helped clinch that title.
The onus of the opposition’s defensive game plan will always be on Brunson, and while he still racked up those 25 points, Anunoby — usually the defensive stalwart — added 28 points while shooting 50% from three-point range.
Clarkson and Tyler Kolek, the reserve guards, combined to put up 29 points, with 24 of them coming in the second half. After being outscored by the Spurs’ bench 37-15 in the first three quarters, New York’s reserves returned the favor by winning the fourth quarter 18-8.
Rather than leaning entirely on that starting five, which Thibodeau would have done, Brown stayed with what was working.
“OG Anunoby, Tyler Kolek, Jordan Clarkson, Mitchell Robinson, they played their a—s off tonight. Without them, we don’t win this.”
