It wasn’t quite a St. Peter’s miracle, but the Knicks pulled off their own little upset in South Beach.
Trailing by as many as 17 in the fourth quarter, Tom Thibodeau rode his youngsters to a shocker over the Miami Heat, the No. 1 team in the East, 111-103.
Immanuel Quickley was the hero of the night, scoring 16 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter while carving up the Heat’s vaunted defense. Much of the comeback occurred with RJ Barrett on the bench, and with a lineup featuring three rookies – Jericho Sims, Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride – who combined with Quickley and sage veteran Taj Gibson to outduel Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry.
Julius Randle watched in street clothes, missing his third straight games with a quad contusion. But afterwards, Tom Thibodeau issued a strong warning about uninformed media and/or fans trying to divide the team, or trying to define performances and trends based on small data.
Thibodeau wasn’t specific, but a constant narrative around this roster has been pitting teammates against one another – whether there are calls for RJ Barrett to get the ball over Julius Randle; or for the young players to play over the veterans.
The latter sentiment is picking up steam after consecutive victories on the backs of youngsters.
“Everyone has all the answers right after a game and often times, they haven’t studied. So, how do you really know?” Thibodeau said. “And I don’t want anything to divide our team. I want our team together. That’s how you win. You win as a team. You lose as a team. So, when I see stuff being written or people talking about this, that. You hear it all the time, and then when you actually do study it and you watch the game again and maybe you watch it a third time, you actually know what transpired.”
McBride, who spent much of this season out of the rotation, upped his stock Friday by outplaying Lowry in the fourth quarter.
Thibodeau, when asked about the young players’ leading the fourth quarter, tried to cut off the debate before it started.
“You guys are trying to nitpick this, nitpick that,” Thibodeau said. “You need everyone across the course of a season. We love our young guys. They bring it every day. They’re supposed to bring energy. You need RJ, you need Julius, you need Mitch (Robinson), you need Evan (Fournier),you need Alec (Burks), you need everyone.
“It’s a team, not an individual thing. Can’t pick up a box score after and after say things. How many people are watching to the end of the game to really know exactly what happened in the game? I see a lot of opinions but I don’t see guys doing the work to actually study it.”
In the playoff picture, Friday’s win doesn’t mean much for the Knicks (31-42). The Hawks beat the Warriors on Friday and remained five games ahead of New York for the final play-in spot.
But it was an encouraging performance from the young core, following their strong performance two nights earlier in a win over the Hornets. It was also the first time Thibodeau beat the Heat in six tries as Knicks head coach.
But he also seemed to be fighting a different battle post game – against the narrative dividing his team.
“I don’t like anything that eats away at the fabric of the team,” Thibodeau said. “And so, people wanna take one game, whether it’s a win or a loss and they went, ‘Well, this, this and this.’ No. And often times, they things that they’re saying, a guy might make one good play in the game and he has nine bad plays or conversely, he makes nine good plays and he has one bad play.”
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