INDIANAPOLIS – Around 10 pm on Sunday, some of you were probably putting Karl-Anthony Towns in the trade machine. Maybe it was for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Maybe Kevin Durant.
Other Knick fans were cursing Tom Thibodeau’s coaching or Jalen Brunson’s turnovers.
Things looked bleak at the time.
The Knicks were 12 minutes away from a 3-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference Finals and probably a few days away from the start of their offseason.
And then, improbably, Towns saved the Knicks’ season.
Towns’ 20 points in the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter gave the Knicks life in a game where they looked stuck in the mud.
When Towns started scoring, the Knicks were down 10. When he hit a 30-foot three pointer with 5:07 to play, New York led by four and had a clear path to win No. 1 in the Eastern Conference Finals.
They sealed the win with a big basket from Brunson, huge rebounds and clutch free throws from Josh Hart.
But none of it would have mattered without Towns’ 20 points.
“Fourth quarter is different. It’s a whole ‘nother game,” he said afterward. “Forget that last game and those last three quarters and just focus on giving yourself a change to win the game.”
THE RIGHT ROTATION MOVES
Thibodeau shook up the lineup ahead of Game 3, inserting Mitchell Robinson and moving Hart to the bench.
He also changed his rotation, giving minutes to Landry Shamet and Delon Wright ahead of Cam Payne.
After the game, Thibodeau didn’t go into great detail when asked to explain the decisions.
“Whatever gives your team the best chance to win. I know you try to put everything into a box. I don’t work that way,” Thibodeau said in response to a question about his rotation. “People think, ‘I want a low-scoring game.’ No, I just want more point than they have. I don’t care if it’s low scoring, high scoring, medium scoring. I just wanna win. That’s the bottom line.
“Whatever gives us the best chance to win, that’s what we’re gonna do. And so, that’s what I felt was gonna give us the best chance to win tonight’s game, so that’s why we did it.”
The Knicks starting lineup had been outscored by 29 in the first two games of the Pacers series.
They were a +1 in 14 minutes on Sunday.
The Knicks’ original starting lineup – Brunson, Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, Hart – was a +9 in 3:30 in the game.
Whether you agree with Thibodeau’s moves or not, you can’t say they didn’t lead to success on Sunday night.
With Miles McBride in foul trouble, Thibodeau went to Wright and then Shamet.
Shamet had been out of the rotation since early in the Detroit series. Wright hadn’t played regular minutes in roughly seven weeks. But both players contributed to the Knicks’ fourth-quarter comeback.
McBride had nine points and a steal in 14 second-half minutes.
New York outscored Indiana by 12 with McBride on the floor in the second half.
“Coach did a great job with moving things around and we figured it out,” he said.
HART TO HART WITH THIBS
Hart had a huge contested rebound of a Myles Turner missed three with 20 seconds to go. The Knicks led by two at the time. Hart drew a foul on the rebound and hit both of his free throws to give New York a two-possession lead.
He was everywhere in the fourth quarter, finishing with five rebounds (two offensive), two assists and one steal. He also hit all four of his free throws.
Not bad for a bench player.
After the game, Hart said that he played a significant role in Thibodeau’s lineup decision.
He’d been thinking about the lineup change since late in the Boston series when he was having a tough time against Luke Kornet. When it was time to make the switch, Hart was fully on board.
“It was kind of my decision. I was comfortable with it,” Hart said after the game. “It was something that I’ve had in the back of my mind and I’ve always been wiling to do. Down two (games against the Pacers), especially with how (Robinson) played last game, that was something that we had to do. And obviously that’s a group decision that really boils down to Thibs and myself (agreeing on it).”
The decision obviously worked out well on Sunday.
The same can be said for Thibodeau’s decision to bring Brunson back in the game with 1:37 to play and the Knicks up by two. New York played for the previous five minutes with Brunson on the bench with foul trouble. Brunson also wasn’t producing for much of the game (he was 4-for-14 with three turnovers and one assist through three quarters).
But Brunson came in the game and hit a huge runner with 1:17 to go. The shot gave the Knicks a two-point lead that they would hold onto for the rest of the game.
“I knew we had to have him down the stretch,” Thibodeau said afterward.
And he knew the right time to get him in the game. After two tough games to open the series, Thibodeau deserves credit for the way he coached in Game 3.
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