Knicks 103, Nets 90: “Shoot 3s better, win games”

January 28, 2023, was a day when Yuta Watanabe scored 9 points, Joe Harris was playing basketball and Nic Claxton still felt like a somewhat promising prospect. It was a day when Julius Randle, RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley were still donning the orange and blue Knicks jersey, Jericho Sims practiced for the dunk contest before the game and Evan Fournier, for some incomprehensible reason, got a DNP.

The day also marked the last time the Brooklyn Nets beat the New York Knickerbockers.

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Obviously, a lot of things have happened between the game almost four years ago and today. Kyrie Irving’s career path has considerably flattened since falsely inspiring the 27 fans of his former team, and the Knicks have changed almost their entire roster (luckily not the guy wearing number 11) and now have a shiny little ring to show for it. It’s hard to put the distance between the two franchises into words, but if you needed a reminder of it, last night’s game was a good illustration.

Sloppy Knicks still too much for naughty Nets

For long stretches, New York did not really deserve to win this game. They settled for three after three, sleepwalked through one pick and roll after another and were constantly late to the orange leather ball. They didn’t think it was necessary to feature Karl-Anthony Towns against a team that had no answer for him in the past; they didn’t think the opponent was dangerous enough to punish the experiments with their own lineup. And you know what? It all didn’t matter because the New York Knicks are a good basketball team and the Nets are not.

What they are, though, is a scrappy young bunch (actually the youngest there is in the league) with some decent players and an inspiring coach, a team that is hellbent on trying to get the most out of their limited resources—be it on the court or later at the trade deadline. For three quarters, that was plenty enough to give the Knicks some headaches, as Brooklyn actually led the contest going into the fourth quarter. But then the New York bench happened.

Just like a few nights ago in Chicago, Mike Brown found the right mix of guys from the pine, and…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-103-nets-90-shoot-122147717.html

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Publish date : 2026-11-03 12:21:00

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