Best Game Of The Year For Randle
Photo: Special To The NY Beacon
By Samori Benjamin
Big Points Off The Bench From Quickley
Photo: Special To The NY Beacon
Basketball fans did not know what to make of the NBA’s decision to add an In-Season Tournament this season. If you are a Knicks fan however it is time to have some fun. The Knicks have moved on to the quarterfinal round of the inaugural event. They punched their ticket there with a 115-91 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. Power forward Julius Randle had his best game of the early season for the Knicks with a 25 point, 20 rebound, 5 assist performance. Immanuel Quickley had 23 points off the bench for the Knicks and Josh Hart also came off the bench and added 17 points.
This is the third time the Knicks have beaten the Hornets this season and the last time they played them at Madison Square Garden on November 12th Hornets point guard LaMelo Ball scored 32 points on them and in the next game in Charlotte on November 18th Ball dropped 34 points on the Knicks. The Knicks won both of those games in blowouts.
Without Ball on Tuesday night the Hornets stood little chance. That was the case because Ball suffered a severe ankle injury in Charlotte’s previous game on Sunday in Boston. Tuesday night against the Knicks was his first missed game in what will be several over the next few weeks. Ball suffered through three ankle injuries last season which allowed him to only play just 36 of the 82 regular season games.
In the first month of the season Tuesday and Friday nights are In-Season Tournament night games and last night was the final night of group play where the knicks finished with a 3-1 record which was good enough to qualify for the quarterfinals of the event. Tournament games also count as regular season games, and the Knicks now have a 10-7 record on the season. The Knicks quarterfinals game will take place next Tuesday in Milwaukee. They will now have to face Milwaukee a total of five times this regular season with two games coming at home during the holidays on December 23rd and December 25th. The two teams have played once on the season and that came all the way back in the first week of the season which was also the first In-Season tournament game that was played. Jalen Brunson had 45 points in that game for the Knicks in a close 110-105 loss.
The Milwaukee Bucks have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference at 13-5 and won the NBA championship in 2021 with two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Knicks schedule originally had them playing Milwaukee four times this season but because they have qualified for the tournament quarterfinals, they will have to play Milwaukee an additional time. Knicks Head Coach Tom Thibodeau is not complaining about it. “If they tell us we have to play this team five times then we play them five times and be ready,” he said after the win over Charlotte. “Whatever it is. If they say it’s eight times, it’s eight times. Whatever the schedule says, that’s what you have. Sometimes it’s in your favor, sometimes it’s not. Just be ready to play and that’s what we want the focus to be. Don’t change your strategy of how you prepare, get ready for every game and then analyze what happened and move on to the next one.”
Before the Knicks take on Milwaukee in the quarterfinal game on December 5th they play two non-tournament games which will come Thursday night at home against Detroit and Friday night in Toronto against the Raptors.
