Jalen Brunson wasn’t happy with his play against Boston. He missed 15 of 21 shots in the Knicks’ season-opening loss to the Celtics.
“Gotta be better, way better,” Brunson said about an hour after New York lost a winnable game.
But Brunson and other Knicks also saw some good things Wednesday night. Things that they hope to take with them to Atlanta on Friday.
“Playing against a team like that, at home, it just shows us what we need to do to be better,” Brunson said about an hour after the loss. “There’s a lot of positives to take from it, but (we) still gotta learn.”
You may not like hearing that if you’re a glass half-empty Knick fan (which is totally understandable). The pessimists out there had plenty to chew on in this game.
Brunson and Julius Randle combined to shoot 11-for-43 from the floor. Randle missed four of his five free-throw attempts, including one with 49 seconds to go and the Knicks down two.
New York actually led by six with 3:39 to go, but fell apart down the stretch. The Knicks went 1-for 3-from the free throw line and 1-for-5 from the field to close the game.
“Missed free throws, fouls, couple things could’ve gone either way, they went against us,” Tom Thibodeau said. “But we have to find a way to get it done at the end. So I look at the mental errors. We got to clean that up.”
They fell apart at the end, but credit the Knicks for rebounding from a slow start against a tough Celtics team; they outscored Boston by 18 over a 32-minute stretch that began at the top of the second quarter.
That’s where the optimism comes from. New York clawed back against Boston, a team that projects to be a conference finalist, if healthy.
“If you look up the scoreboard and in the first quarter you see Jalen Brunson has two points, to still be in the game at that point says something about us as a team,” Isaiah Hartenstein said. “I’m excited. Just playing a team that early I think is going to be great for us moving forward. Just take the good and the bad and keep moving forward.”
Last year’s Knicks team adopted a similar ethos. The focus then was on daily improvement, cleaning up mistakes but not dwelling on them.
Brunson & Co. used that mindset to win 47 games and a first-round playoff series. It seems like they’ve carried the same approach to 2023-24. Just listen to Randle’s take on the game.
“I think we missed shots that we normally make, easy ones around the rim,” he said. “I can count three or four around the rim for me, personally, that —those are bunnies that I usually make….Nights like these happen. Sucks opening night, but that’s why it’s an 82-game season. We’ll bounce back. I’ll bounce back. We’ll be fine.”
QUICK STUDY
Brunson said earlier this week that he didn’t think Immanuel Quickley’s contract situation would impact his play.
Quickley proved Brunson’s point on opening night against Boston. He had 24 points and hit five of his seven three point attempts off the bench.
“He’s mentally built for this,” Brunson said of Quickley.
“This” is Quickley’s uncertain contract situation. The fourth-year guard and his employer failed to reach an agreement on a rookie extension by the deadline on Monday. He will be a restricted free agent this summer.
If the uncertainty bothered him, he didn’t let it show on the court Wednesday.
Quickley scored eight key points for New York midway through the fourth quarter, including a remarkable step-back three over Derrick White.
“Quick is going to play how he plays. It’s not gonna faze him at all with the stuff he went through these past couple of weeks,” Brunson said. “I’m not really surprised the way he played.”
PORZINGIS FEELS RIGHT AT HOME
While the Knicks were falling apart late in the fourth, Kristaps Porzingis was thriving. He hit all six of his free-throw attempts and a huge three-pointer in the final 2:38 of the game.
At one point earlier in the fourth, the Garden crowd showered Porzingis with an expletive-laced chant. Porzingis said afterward that the noise propelled him late in the game.
“For me, it was fun. I was enjoying all that,” he said. “Using that as motivation, motivation to make big plays at the end…. It was actually really really fun to play in that environment.”
Porzingis looked like a Latvian Larry Bird in his Celtics debut. He had 30 points and hit five of his nine three-point attempts. Porzingis also went 9-for-10 from the free-throw line and blocked four shots.
“It’s honestly an awesome feeling to come back now being healthy and playing here. Even getting booed and getting all that, it’s still cool,” Porzingis said. “I really like that, I enjoy that. But most importantly we won the game. I’m really excited about what we have ahead of us. And I wish the Knicks. This city and the organization nothing but the best.”