The Knicks begin to gel in opening the Emirates Cup with a win
The Knicks ensured that the Philadelphia 76ers’ seven-time All-Star center Joel Embiid’s season debut wasn’t a celebration by bettering him and his teammates on Tuesday night. The Knicks’ 111-99 road win in the opening game of the NBA Emirates Cup, which was formerly named the In-Season Tournament in its league inaugural last year, was another step in them coalescing.
OG Anunoby scored a team-high 24 points, Josh Hart notched a triple-double with 14 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, Karl-Anthony Towns had 21 points and 13 rebounds, and Jalen Brunson contributed 18 points to move the Knicks to 5-5 ahead of their matchup with the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden last night.
The Sixers fell to 2-8 playing without injured (right hamstring) star guard Tyrese Maxey. Embiid appeared in his first game after being held out for injury maintenance then serving a three-game suspension for pushing a journalist after a verbal confrontation between them in the team’s locker room following a 124-107 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on November 2.
The Knicks’ starting lineup this season features newcomers Towns, a four-time All-Star forward/center, acquired from the Minnesota Timberwolves on October 2 in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo, and Bridges, a small forward who was the Brooklyn Nets’ best player for the better part of the previous two seasons before joining the Knicks this past July 6. New York’s team president Leon Rose determined that Bridges was worth dealing five-future first round picks to the Nets.
The returning three starters, forward Anunoby, in just his second season with the team, guard Brunson, and guard/forward Hart, have continued to ably fill their multifaceted roles in the early part of this season while Towns and Bridges adapt to head coach Tom Thibodeau’s vision how they can build a championship group after reaching the Eastern Conference semifinals last season.
Brusnon and Towns are on an All-Star track. Both were selections last February and have continued to be among the league’s best players. Towns leads the Knicks in both scoring (24.5 points per game) and rebounding (12.4), while Brunson was only two-tenths of a point behind him at 24.3 and was pacing the team in assists (6.4) before facing the Bulls.
Bridges, who averaged 26.1 points per game in 27 games with the Nets two seasons ago after coming to them via a trade with the Phoenix Suns, and 19.1 last season, was at 15.2 points on 47.4% shooting through 10 games before last night. However, Bridges was the primary scorer for the Nets and had a higher shot volume than he does as a Knick.
Although Bridges’s need to score at the same rate has been reduced in the Knicks’ lineup, he is still a key component of the offense.
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