Benchmark for Knicks in NBA Finals is confidence shown in non-starters

SAN ANTONIO — You have to be ready for anything at any moment.

So goes the philosophy of the Knicks’ bench, a particularly tight unit that takes great pride in the role they have played in the postseason.

Heading into Friday night’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals, the Knicks’ bench ranked first among all teams in the postseason, having outscored opposing benches by 5.1 points per game.

Their strength is one of the big reasons the Knicks were able to take a 1-0 lead in the series; they outscored San Antonio’s bench 28-20.

The reserve players are primed to continue playing a pivotal role in the series, and they have the stats to back up that feeling. Through 15 playoff games, they have outscored their opponents by a total of 77 points.

“Our bench unit, we have a really unique group,” said Landry Shamet, who led the Knicks’ reserves with 13 points and shot 5-for-9 in Game 1. “All down the line we really trust each other and root for each other — whoever it is, whoever is inserted into a tough spot or when there is foul trouble. You know coming off the bench, there are a lot of things you can be dealing with, and we have a lot of guys who are more than capable of stepping in and producing.”

Shamet wasn’t the lone bench player to contribute to the Game 1 win. Mitchell Robinson had six rebounds despite playing with a broken pinkie. Deuce McBride had six points, four assists and a plus-11 rating.

And then there was Jose Alvarado. He stepped in for Jalen Brunson when Brunson went to the locker room in the first quarter after Shamet accidentally knocked Harrison Barnes into his right knee.

What was Alvarado’s first thought as he saw Brunson hobble off the court?

“He better come back,” Alvarado said with a laugh. “My second thought is this is what I do. I have worked since I was a kid for this moment, this is something I live for and I just want to take advantage of it and do what the team needed. And I hope I did that.”

The 6-foot, 179-pound guard, who grew up in Brooklyn, came up big for the Knicks on both ends of the floor while Brunson was in the locker room getting his knee checked out. Alvarado drew big-time cheers from the Knicks’ bench when he fearlessly challenged Victor Wembanyama, drawing a goaltending call on the 7-4 superstar, and he wound up scoring seven points in the second quarter.

Josh Hart said it was the kind of energetic performance that the team has come to expect from Alvarado since he was obtained from the Pelicans on Feb. 5.

“Jose was kind of like a deer in the headlights at first,” Hart said of Alvarado, who grew up a diehard Knicks fan. “But you could tell he had the energy around it that was contagious, that he was willing to work. He had a chip on his shoulder and was really willing to do whatever it took to get on the court. I think when you do that and you have the mentality and you start seeing success with it, you kind of double down on that.

“He goes out there, pushes the pace, makes us play fast. Defensively gives good minutes and gives contagious energy. Even when you look at him on the bench, he’s up, he’s talking, he’s doing those kinds of things. When you’ve got a guy that’s locked in like that, even when he’s off the court, as a teammate and a player, you have the ultimate confidence in someone like that when his number is called. Obviously, it was called a little bit earlier [Wednesday].”

The strength of the second unit is one of the biggest differences between this Knicks team and the one that lost to Indiana in the Eastern Conference Finals last year.

The Knicks upgraded their bench personnel this season, adding Alvarado, Jordan Clarkson and Mo Diawara to a group that already included Robinson, McBride, Shamet, Tyler Kolek and Ariel Hukporti.

The Knicks, who entered Friday’s Game 2 on a 12-game winning streak that included 11 double-digit victories, likely wouldn’t have swept the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals if it hadn’t been for Shamet.

After struggling early in the playoffs, Shamet made the biggest shot of the postseason when he hit a tying three-pointer in the Knicks’ incredible comeback win over the Cavaliers in Game 1, an overtime victory in which they trailed by 22 in the fourth quarter. He missed only one of his 12 three-point attempts in that series.

When Mike Brown was hired as head coach, he said developing the bench was one of his priorities.

“It’s a philosophy I had. One of the many things I learned from Pop [Gregg Popovich] and Steve Kerr,” Brown said. “Steve was really good at trying to play a lot of different guys . . . Then at the end of the day, I’m not a medical person, but just from what medical people say, if you can kind of control the minutes during the regular season, it helps them during the postseason. From people telling me that, I believe it. That’s what I tried to do.”

The philosophy wasn’t always easy mentally on the starters, who were used to contributing heavy minutes. Hart, for example, led the entire league in minutes per game last season with 37.6. This season, he was down to 30.2 in the regular season and 32.6 in the playoffs.

“There were moments I went home and I’m like, damn, am I [bad]? Do I stink as a basketball player? There were a lot of those moments,” Hart said. “Whenever your minutes go down or you get benched, you have that thought process. But for me, it was, OK, how can I build off of it, how can I improve as a player to not put myself in that situation?”

He said he now sees the benefit of it.

“Now I’m cool with [fewer minutes] sometimes,” Hart said. “Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, I got benched. Landry was out there hooping, and I was happy about it. But that took a little bit of time and self-reflection to get to that point.”

Time, reflection and confidence in the bench.

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.