“We played well, from start to finish.” It's not every day that Tom Thibodeau is so satisfied with his players, but he honestly doesn't have much to reproach them for. Against the Magic, the Knicks had one of their best matches of the season, against a team that was aiming for a sweep after beating them three times this season. A major success (98-74), and it had been 12 years since the Knicks had conceded so few points.
“We were really aggressive, on the ball, without the ball, on rotations… We were really in sync” explains Josh Hart. “We were very active in our shell, and that allowed us to project ourselves and run a little. It was a great match for us, and against a team that had beaten us three times this season, we needed confidence and energy.”
Faced with a team that had five wins in a row, and was one victory ahead of them in the standings, the Knicks took Paolo Banchero's teammates by the throat. In the role of the first attacker, Jalen Brunson. We left him on one leg on Tuesday evening, but he was already back, and he did Brunson.
“We can only have respect for him because he did his best to come back” explains Thibodeau. “He trained twice a day. He pushed himself in training. He arrived earlier, he left later… He came back in the evening for treatment…”
Paolo Banchero wants to find the Knicks in the playoffs
And then the Knicks were motivated by the ranking, and the prospect of finding the Magic in the playoffs. A message had to be sent. Paolo Banchero felt it well. “From the interval, we could feel this intensity” recognizes the All-Star power forward, before discussing what comes next. »
“It will be interesting to see how this all plays out,” said Magic star Paolo Banchero, who finished with 23 points Friday. “The fight between fourth and eighth place is so tight that we don't know how things will play out in the last 19 matches… But it's entirely possible that we play them in the playoffs, and that would be great to do a series here.
This Saturday morning, the Knicks returned to 4th place, and the Magic went down to 5th. The good news for them is that the Heat and the Sixers remain on 2 and 3 defeats in a row. But everyone stands in two victories.
