ALL GONE TO SPLIT
Knicks beat Hawks to salvage weekend after loss to terri-Bulls
The schedule-maker smiled at the Knicks over this past weekend. He gave them back-to-back games, never a joy, but they were against the two worst teams in the NBA. The key, of course, is to beat them.
On Saturday in Chicago against the woeful Bulls, they did not.
On Sunday at the Garden against the depressing Hawks, they did.
“The Chicago loss was terrible, we should have won,” said center Enes Kanter, who was on crutches Sunday — but he played — with a bruised hip.
So the Knicks had to find a way to win. They turned to Kristaps Porzingis, who returned to bigload mode with 30 points. And they turned to their bench for a small lineup to snuff the small-ball Hawks. It finished as attractive as an oil slick but the Knicks survived, 111-107, at the Garden to inch back to the .500 mark.
And for the fourth-quarter lineup that did just enough, coach Jeff Hornacek turned to the likes of Doug McDermott (season-high 23 points), rookie Frank Ntilikina (all eight points in the fourth quarter) and — wait for it — Ron Baker (nine points) who ended up playing 31 minutes. The bench contributed 45 points for the Knicks (13-13).
“We just had a lot of energy. We knew we had a back-to-back [Saturday] night and we had to be really important tonight,” said McDermott, who shot 9-of-13. “I was just trying to be a little more aggressive out there with Tim [Hardaway Jr.] out, I feel it opens things up for me and our bigs do such a good job of passing.”
And the Knicks got a nice lift defensively from the Baker-Ntilikina backcourt.
“Our guards did a great job,” said Porzingis, who registered his ninth 30-point game of the season, his first since Nov. 11.
“We came out ready to play. We knew it was going to be a tough game, playing the second game of a back-to-back. It was a rough, physical, long game,” Porzingis said. “At the end we grinded this game out and did what we needed to do.”
Even if it were done in unconventional fashion.
The Knicks clung to an 84-82 lead after Atlanta’s Dennis Schroder (21 points) drove with 9:04 left. McDermott sank a pair of free throws at 8:47 and then Ntilikina scored seven straight Knicks points, producing a 93-84 lead with seven minutes to go. The Knicks still were up nine with 2:22 to go and vapor-locked late. In fact, the Hawks were within 105102 after an Ersan Ilyasova (20 points) layup. The Knicks turned it over and then Marco Belinelli had a wide-open 3. He ball-faked, shot — and missed with 52 seconds left. Jack (season-high 19 points) next buried a jumper with 29 seconds to go for a 107102 lead.
“He’s a veteran guy and he knows how to play basketball. Some nights he looks like he doesn’t have energy, but he figures out to get to spots,” Hornacek said of Jack.
But Jack fouled Kent Bazemore on the perimeter with 8.3 seconds left with the Knicks up four. Bazemore made two free throws and Jack went to the line the other way. He bricked the first so it was 109-106, Atlanta ball. Bazemore made one, missed and the ball went to the Knicks. Porzingis made two free throws for his 30-point game.
“That’s a tough team to play when they go with the small guys,” Hornacek said, explaining his fourth-quarter alignment that kept the ailing Kanter (eight points, 18 minutes) on the bench. “We just felt that young group, Ron, Lance [Thomas] was out there, Frank, those guys are very good defensively.”
For Baker, oxygen and vitamin water may have been in order. Combined with Saturday, he played 53 minutes after being sparingly used since incurring an injury in late October.
“The last two games coach told me, ‘You’re active. Be ready to go. We want to have an extra ball-handler out there,’” Baker said.
And then Hornacek tried working him to death.
But Sunday was a whatever-ittakes affair. Losing to the gosh-awful Bulls on the road is one thing. But doubling up at home against the depressing Hawks is another.