DiVincenzo and Deuce Deliver as Knicks Cut Down Nets

If New York takes care of business vs. the Pistons and the injury-depleted Cavs lose in Miami on Sunday, the Knicks could be tied for third in the East late Monday night.

Final Score: Knicks 105 - Nets 93
Record: 42-28

With the Knicks missing their entire frontcourt for the better part of the last six weeks, Jalen Brunson has often been tasked with putting New York on his back and carrying his team to victory. However, on Saturday afternoon at the Garden, Brunson was off his game and unable to find a rhythm, converting just seven of his 24 FG attempts. 

In his stead, Brunson's buddy Donte DiVincenzo and his nominal backup, Miles McBride, seized an opportunity to step in and step up. 

DiVincenzo shot 12-of-24 from the field and 3-of-4 from the foul line en route to a game-high 31 points. He also stuffed the stat sheet with six rebounds, five assists, two steals, one block, and four 3-pointers in 41 minutes.

Coming into Saturday's matchup with Brooklyn, DDV had been struggling with his jumper, having shot below 37% in seven of New York's previous eight games. And while DiVincenzo was just 4-of-13 from behind the arc vs. the Nets, he didn't settle for long-range bombs. Instead, he did plenty of damage from two-point range. DiVincenzo consistently attacked the tin, scoring 14 points in the paint and making seven of his nine shots from within five feet of the basket. His eight total two-point FGs on Saturday tied a career-high. 

The other Knick to provide much-needed offense was Mr. McBride, who is quickly establishing himself as an essential rotational piece due to his crucial contributions on both ends of the floor. In the win over Brooklyn, Deuce tallied 26 points (9-of-16 FGs, 2-of-2 FTs), two rebounds, three assists, one steal, and six 3-pointers. 

McBride played all 48 minutes on Saturday, and since entering the starting lineup in place of OG Anunoby three games ago, he has been on the floor for 140 of a possible 144 minutes. Deuce's ability to handle this monstrous workload is remarkable, especially considering he rarely played, let alone started, early this season. 

Here are McBride's stat totals over the first two months of this season, from Opening Night through the end of December (New York's first 31 games):
34 points
7 three-pointers
7 assists 
82 minutes  

Here are Deuce's stats this week (3 games):
66 points
8 assists
13 made three-pointers
139 minutes

And his impressive offensive numbers only tell half the story. McBride has also been tasked with guarding the opponent's best perimeter player. 

Against Golden State on Monday, Deuce chased Steph Curry around the Chase Center. In the 51 possessions Deuce defended Curry, Steph went 4-for-13 with two turnovers and one assist.

Thursday night vs. the Nuggets (when Deuce became the first visiting player to log 44+ in a regulation game in Denver since 2016), he was tasked with slowing down Jamal Murry. 

Yesterday afternoon, McBride was matched up against Brooklyn's leading scorer, Cam Thomas. Although Thomas made some tough, contested shots, he finished 6-of-14 from the floor.  

When asked how he has been able to thrive after being tossed into the deep end of the pool, McBride replied: "Honestly, it's mental. Just telling myself to keep pushing through, give everything I've got in order to get the win."  

"It started when I was a child, how I was raised. My parents were always telling me to be mentally strong; you're a leader out there," McBride told the Post. "People are looking to you. So if you crack, then it goes in line, so I just want to be as strong as I can and continue to do what I do." 

Deuce's improvement and importance to the team's recent success have certainly not been lost on Tom Thibodeau, as evidenced by how heavily he's leaned on Deuce this week. The head coach heaped plenty of praise on McBride after Saturday's victory. 

"The thing is you, there's nothing that you don't love about Deuce," Thibs gushed. "From the moment we drafted him and even when he wasn't playing, that tells you a lot because of the way he worked. A guy's work ethic is a big part of it, too. His drive … so it's a credit to him. He's in phenomenal shape. He stays in phenomenal shape. He takes care of himself. So I think he has the ability to do it [long minutes]." 

Other Takeaways and Knicks Notes:

🏀 In addition to DDV and Deuce, the other 'Bocker who excelled on Saturday was Isaiah Hartenstein. iHart racked up 17 points (8-of-10 shooting), nine rebounds, two assists, four steals, and two blocks in 26 minutes.

That makes four straight very good games from Hartenstein, who is averaging 14.3 points (on 83.3% shooting), 10.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 2.3 blocks during this four-game surge. iHart said he feels healthy again and told reporters: "We're playing more unselfish basketball right now, and that's fun for me. It lets me do what I was brought there to do."

🏀 Josh Hart was just 3-of-8 from the floor but ripped down a game-high 13 rebounds, dished out five dimes, and tacked on one steal and one block in 44 minutes. He provided a huge spark in the second half. 

Somehow, Hart has averaged 11.7 rebounds per game over the last month. 

Here's the leaderboard for most rebounds by non-centers since the All-Star Break:
1. Josh Hart: 175 rebounds 
2. Luka Doncic: 134
3. Draymond Green: 127
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo: 120

And for those curious, Royce O'Neal has the second-most rebounds by a player 6'4" or shorter (89). 

🏀 Zooming out for a moment, it's wild to think that five of the Knicks' top-six rotation players on Opening Night (Four starters and their 6th man: Randle, Robinson, Grimes, RJ and IQ) have not played for NY in six weeks. And (other than Precious) the guys the Knicks traded RJ/IQ/Grimes for have been bad or hurt the past six weeks. Yet, somehow, this team is still 12 games over .500 and one game back of the 3-seed in late March.

Brunson deserves the lion's share of the credit, but DiVincenzo, iHart, Deuce, Precious and iHart have been phenomenal in their roles. 

🏀 On the flip side of the coin, one of the reasons Hart and McBride have played an insane amount of minutes (over NY's past three games, they've been on the floor together for 122 minutes, or 85% of the time) is because the Detroit Duo of Alec Burks and Bojan Bogdanovic continue to struggle mightily. 

Since the end of February, only three players (minimum 50 FG attempts) have shot below 34% from the floor and below 30% from downtown: Evan Fournier, Bojan Bogdanovic, and Alec Burks.

Burks was 2-of-9 from the floor vs. Brooklyn. Bogey has just three points for the second straight game. And as awful/inefficient as he's been offensively, Bogdanovic has been much worse on defense - which is saying a lot. Notably, he didn't play a single second in the second half. He could be entirely out of the rotation if/when the Knicks get fully healthy.  

🏀 As for the injured 'Bockers, OG Anunoby missed his third straight game. The fact that he continues to be ruled out 24 hours prior to each contest is not overly encouraging. Mitchell Robinson was also ruled out on Friday's injury report. There was some hope he'd be upgraded to questionable, but no dice. 

New York may be erring on the side of caution due to the easy opponents on the slate.

Thibodeau said he had no update regarding Mitch Rob, OG, or Randle. Thibs was asked if Anunoby would have been able to practice on Saturday if the Knicks didn't have a game. Thibodeau didn't answer the question directly but did say OG is " doing better… so just let it calm down and go from there." 

Randle still has not been cleared for contact or full participation in practice, and with just 12 games left in the regular season, he's running out of runway. 

🏀 Vicious quote from Josh Hart on his Nova-buddy Mikal Bridges: "It's like that SpongeBob meme when Squidward is looking out the window and he sees SpongeBob and Patrick having fun. [Mikal] is Squidward."

🏀 Brunson didn't attempt a single free throw in Saturday's win. It was the first time since his Knicks debut (Opening Night of the 2022-23 season) that he'd played a full game and failed to get to the stripe at least once. It's part of a troubling trend I highlighted earlier this month: Brunson's free-throw rate has recently plummeted.

In January, JB averaged 6.5 free throws per game.

Over the team's first ten games in February, that number ballooned to 8.3 FT attempts a night. 

Yet, it's down to 4.8 in March.

Over a two-month span from Christmas Day through February 26th (a 27-game sample size), Brunson attempted fewer than five FTs just twice. Over his last nine games, he's attempted fewer than five FT's six times. 

🏀 Deuce McBride over his first two SEASONS (104 games):
57-for-202 from three-point territory (28%)
36-for-54 from the free-throw line (66%)

Deuce McBride over the past two MONTHS (31 games):
60-of-149 from three-point territory (40%)
28-of-33 from the free-throw line (84%)

🏀 Total number of minutes Deuce McBride and Jalen Brunson shared the floor together all of last season (82 games):
71 minutes 

Total number of minutes Deuce McBride and Jalen Brunson have shared the floor together this week (3 games):
97 minutes

There were a lot of folks arguing these two couldn't play together last season. That is not the case...

🏀 Standings Watch
Saturday's results:
Magic lost to the Kings 
With the Knicks' victory over the Nets and Orlando's loss to Sacramento, NY moves ahead of the Magic.

The Knicks are currently the 4-seed by themselves and just one game behind Cleveland.

Sunday's games:
Sixers play at the Clippers
Cavs play at the Heat 
Pacers play at the Lakers 

🏀 Next Up: Knicks host the Pistons on Monday night (7:30 pm tip)

Detroit, just 12-58 on the season, has lost five straight games, and their three most recent losses have been by 20+ points (although to be fair, two of those defeats came against Boston). 

If New York takes care of business vs. the Pistons and the injury-depleted Cavs lose in Miami on Sunday, the Knicks could be tied for third in the East late Monday night.