Brad Penner, USA TODAY SPORTS
Knicks, Jalen Brunson Rebound to Beat Heat, Tie Series in Game 2
On Tuesday night, the New York Knicks became chairmen of the board.
New York tied its Eastern Conference semifinal series with the Miami Heat in the NBA Playoffs with a 111-105 victory at Madison Square Garden, using a clutch performance in the rebounding portions of the box score to knot the best-of-seven set up at 1-1.
The Knicks outrebounded the Jimmy Butler-less Heat 50-34, which included an 11-8 advantage on the offensive glass (producing 14 second-chance points). Five different New Yorkers had at least five with Josh Hart tallying 11 (falling one assist short of a triple-double as he had 11 points as well) as part of a clutch effort in the final stages. Back from injury, Julius Randle led the Knicks with 12 and also scored 25 points in the big win.
Leading scorer Jalen Brunson overcame first-half and self-proclaimed struggles to help shift the score into the Knicks' favor in the second half, tallying 23 of his 30 over the final 24 on 9-of-13 from the field.
Brunson's heroics came after he blamed himself for the Knicks' early series deficit, missing all seven of his attempts from three-point range in the 108-101 loss. While it took a little while to truly get back in an offensive groove, the point guard immediately made up for his outside struggles, sinking the Knicks' first points of the game on a triple.
Randle and RJ Barrett, the former returning to the Knicks' starting lineup after missing Game 1 with an ankle injury, mostly handled the hosts' offensive output in the early going, uniting for 37 points on 12-of-22 from the field in the first half. But, perhaps foreshadowing just how important the paint would become, Miami was able to hold slim yet consistent leads thanks to three respective foul charges on Mitchell Robinson and Isaiah Hartenstein.
A Kevin Love triple with six seconds before the halftime horn, for example, afforded them a three-point advantage at the break and continued driving to the rim allowed them to hold it. Missing their primary spark in Butler, however, the Heat were never able to pull away and allowed Brunson to take over. His 13 points in the third provided a stark contrast to Sunday's destructive third period, besting a dueling 11-point, 5-of-7 tally for Max Strus on the other side.
Backed by the cheers of a raucous MSG crowd, eager to see its first second-round playoff victory since Game 5 of the doomed 2013 match against Indiana, the Knicks broke away from a fairly even fourth through familiar means: Brunson and Hart, well known for their championship antics at Villanova each scored 10 and helped the Knicks pull away on a scoreboard that remained no wider than five over the first nine-plus minutes of the fourth.
But after that lead was taken on a Gabe Vincent layup with 7:45 remaining, the Knicks closed the game out on a 26-15 advantage, with Brunson and Hart accounting for all but six of those points.
Similar to the draining effort they put forth in last week's mostly-Randle-free Game 5 clincher over the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Knicks broke Miami's will by taking away their offensive chances through rebounding. One notable momentum-shifting sequence came in the penultimate minute with the Knicks nursing a 104-100 lead.
After earning the defensive board on a Kyle Lowry miss, Hart tried a triple from the corner and missed but got his own rebound. He missed the follow-up but Randle's offensive board got him to the foul line, his own put-back marred by Bam Adebayo. The returning Randle sank the ensuing free pair to grow the Knicks' eternal lead to six (having permanently pushed ahead thanks to a triple from Brunson with just over four minutes left).
Brunson posted his first 30-point game of the 2023 postseason and his first in any postseason game since Game 2 of last year's Western Conference Finals with Dallas. His Tuesday status was partly in question thanks to a surprise inclusion on the team's injury report. The point guard, diagnosed with ankle soreness, briefly winced on the MSG hardwood after a second quarter encounter with Caleb Martin but remained in the game.
Elsewhere on the scoresheet, Barrett put in 24 to score his fourth consecutive game with at least 20 points (his first such stretch since January). Hartenstein hauled in nine rebounds off the bench.
In defeat, Miami was paced by Caleb Martin's 22 points. The Heat, who lost Butler due to an ankle injury in the latter stages of Sunday's opening win, fell to 9-10 when Butler does not play this season.
Game 3 of the series will shift the affair to South Beach, with the first of two games tipping off on Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
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