Giddey’s Garden party

Australia’s Josh Giddey became the first player in NBA history to record a triple-double in each of his first three games at Madison Square Garden when his late-season surge continued on Monday.

Giddey had 16 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists in 31 minutes for Oklahoma City Thunder in a rollercoaster 113-112 win over New York Knicks at the famous venue.

A surge to open the final quarter took the Thunder from 10 points down to eight points up.

The teams swapped the lead time and again as the game went down to the wire, only for Giddey to ice it with an inbound assist for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to score with 2.1 seconds remaining.

New York’s Jalen Brunson, who had put the Knicks in the lead with 4.1 seconds to go, was controversially denied a foul on that shot.

He then threw up a potential game winner but it bounced short off the rim.

The win moved the Thunder to the top of the Western Conference with a 52-22 record and secured it a berth in the playoffs after a three-year absence.

Giddey’s 10th tripledouble also made him just the second OKC player to reach that mark, behind Russell Westbrook’s 138.

Since the NBA All-Star break, Giddey has stepped up for the Thunder.

In 53 games before the break, Giddey averaged 11.5 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game while shooting at 44.7 per cent from the floor and 32.5 per cent from beyond the arc – well below his averages from his first two seasons.

That was largely due to struggling to fit into a new role as an offensive contributor rather than chief playmaker.

In his past five games, he’s averaged 22.8 points and 7.2 rebounds a game while shooting 63.9 per cent from the floor and 52.2 per cent from three-point range.