Mudiay’s first start no gem
ORLANDO, Fla. — In his first start as a Knick on Thursday, it wasn’t Emmanuel Mudiay at his finest as he still tries to learn his new teammates. But he seemed well in sync with Tim Hardaway Jr. in a momentumboosting play to close the first half.
In the final seconds of the opening half, Mudiay broke out on a fast break and led a sprinting Hardaway with a lovely alley-oop feed. Hardaway reached out far and slammed it home with a bang-bang flourish. The Knicks players walked to the locker room shaking their heads in awe. It’s something they haven’t witnessed much this season.
“[Tim] said nobody has really been throwing him oops,” Mudiay said after the Knicks’ 120-113 victory over the Magic was sealed. “So when I see someone ahead, I’m going to throw it. I’ve been watching him since he was at Michigan. I know what he can do, so I just threw it.”
Playing 2 ¹/2 seasons for the go-go Nuggets, Mudiay tossed his share of lobs at the rim. The shame of it all is he won’t get that chance with Kristaps Porzingis until December, at the earliest.
“We had so many athletes, it didn’t matter, but obviously you can throw it on top of the backboard and [Kenneth] Faried would get it,” Mudiay said of his days in Denver. “I don’t want to say trained, but we all kind of knew somebody’s ahead just throw it to them and they’ll make a play.
“It’s just a feel I have. I’ve always been a pass-first type of guard. If I see someone ahead of me and think they can make a play, I’m going to throw it to them.”
Mudiay will try to bring that brand of speed-ball to the Knicks once he better adjusts to his teammates. This was just his fourth game, and he finally got his first win, even if he sat the fourth quarter as Trey Burke and Frank Ntilikina made a cohesive tandem down the stretch.
“As long as we’re winning, that group was playing really, really well,” Mudiay said. “They had it going. They were making a run and getting stops. It was the right move by coach leaving them in there. I wasn’t being selfish about it or thinking, ‘Oh, I should be in there.’ Not at all.”
Mudiay’s line wasn’t bad — he scored eight points on 4-of-9 shooting with five rebounds, four assists and two turnovers, including one in the game’s opening minute.
The 21-year-old 2015 lottery pick just finished up his first two practices with the Knicks and wants more.
“It made a little bit of difference,” Mudiay said. “I need a couple more. Obviously it’s been a week — not counting the All-Star break. We’re starting to get the chemistry down and what some of these guys can do.
“You rather mess up in practice than in the game. We had a couple of plays in practice where we wasn’t on the same page, when I thought someone would be there but wasn’t. We got that out of the way. It will still take a little bit of time.”
During the All-Star break, Mudiay said he went home. To Denver? “No, that’s not home anymore,”he said. “Definitely home is in Dallas.”
And he’s trying to make a new one in New York.