Knicks soar past Timberwolves with second-half rally
Knicks forward OG Anunoby dribbles the ball up court against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first half of an NBA basketball game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It was, and maybe always will be a referendum on the biggest trade of the Knicks front office’s tenure every time the Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves face off, particularly when Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo and Karl-Anthony Towns seem as invested in proving their worth as much as the fans or front office care.
Those three put up the gaudy numbers that they always seem to seek out. Randle and DiVincenzo now profess to be past their anger at the trade that sent them out of New York, and Towns has always insisted that heading to New York, just a short ride from the New Jersey town he grew up in, was a dream come true.
But if the Timberwolves acquisitions got the better of the statistics, the Knicks won the game easily, 137-114, as Towns did his part, but got plenty of help for the Knicks to improve to 5-0 at home this season.
Randle was hard to stop, finishing with 32 points, and DiVincenzo added 21 points. But even with Anthony Edwards returning to the lineup for the Timberwolves, it wasn’t nearly enough.
Trailing by four points at halftime, the Knicks took over the game in the second half, building an eight-point lead entering the fourth and then pulling away on their way to the balanced victory. The Knicks scored 83 points in the second half.
OG Anunoby seemed to be everywhere on the floor, scoring 25 points, grabbing eight rebounds and adding two steals and one blocked shot. Jalen Brunson did what he always does, pouring in 23 points along with seven rebounds and 10 assists.
Josh Hart and Deuce McBride had huge contributions off the bench. And Mitchell Robinson, the longest-tenured Knicks player, one who has never been traded or played elsewhere, was dominant in limited minutes, chipping in eight points, 10 rebounds (nine offensive) and three blocked shots in just 16 minutes.
“This was a great win for us,” Towns said. “We found a way to continue to win as a team. Tonight was a great night for all of us to focus on the goal at hand and in the end get the win.”
“Proud of our guys,” Mike Brown said. “I thought the first half, I thought Minnesota did a good job with their physicality and their pressure. They kind of had us on our heels. And one of the things we talk about, or the main thing we talked about at halftime is just trying to be the aggressor and not play on your back heel. And I thought our guys did a good job of flipping that switch at halftime. Hopefully, we could have done it from the beginning, but our guys figured it out.”
Towns started the game aggressively, drawing a pair of fouls on drives to the basket and misfiring on a three, all in the first four Knicks’ possessions. But he still didn’t have a field goal in the first quarter and it took a pair of three-point field goals from Hart and four offensive rebounds by Robinson to give the Knicks a 28-26 lead at the end of the period.
But Towns seemed sparked by a Rudy Gobert dunk, driving at the 7-2 shot blocker and quickly dunking over him. He then got Edwards on the block and bullied him under the rim, dunking on him, too. As the Timberwolves defense clamped down on him he then delivered a pair of beautiful passes, finding Bridges cutting to the rim for a layup and then flipping a pass over his shoulder to a cutting Jordan Clarkson for a dunk.
Still, the Knicks trailed, 58-54, at the half thanks to 18 points from Randle and 12 from DiVincenzo, who was 4-for-7, all from beyond the arc.
In the third quarter, Towns gave the Knicks a 66-65 lead with a three, blowing a kiss to the sky after misfiring on his first four attempts beyond the arc. DiVincenzo answered with a cutting baseline dunk, but Brunson put the Knicks back in front again, this time to stay.
Robinson followed a Hart miss with a dunk and then swatted a Jaden McDaniels shot into the seats with the Knicks up 78-70.
“I think we’re growing, we’re learning,” Brunson said. “Obviously playing at home is a big factor. When we get back on the road we have to focus up even harder than we do at home. Find a way to win. The energy at home is great. Playing in front of these fans is awesome. We’ve got to continue to improve.”
Robinson had his biggest impact of the season as he still was only played in brief spurts, approximately three minutes in each time on the floor.
“Basically, we’re managing him and it’s ramping him up,” Brown said. “So his minutes will go up. I just listen to what [VP of Sports Medicine] Casey [Smith] says at the end of the day. It’s just like before, a process of getting him going and continuing to improve.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
