The Knicks looked dead, on their way to a second straight ugly loss to a contender coming out of the All-Star break.
Jalen Brunson was struggling through one of his worst offensive showings of the year, and his supporting cast had done little to help him. They trailed by 18 in the beginning of the fourth quarter, and boos began to emerge around Madison Square Garden.
But it’s never a good idea to write off Brunson.
The All-Star point guard drilled a jumper to pull his team within four points with 4:40 left in the game. Two possessions later, he drew a charge on Amen Thompson to get the ball back for the Knicks. Two more possessions later, he drilled another jumper to bring them back within two. With 1:14 left, he hit a layup to tie the game 103-103. Then he took another charge — this time on Kevin Durant.
Then came his signature moment.
Brunson crossed up Tari Eason and drilled a 15-footer to give the Knicks a two-point lead with 21.2 seconds left. That was enough to lift the Knicks to a thrilling 108-106 win over the Rockets on Saturday night, marking their largest comeback of the season.
“We found a way,” coach Mike Brown said. “That’s what I’m most excited about.”
Brunson did not make a shot from the field until 4:21 left in the third quarter, missing the first five he took. He had just two points at halftime, via free throws. But he scored eight points in the fourth quarter, going 4-for-4 from the field to help the Knicks avoid what would have been another concerning loss.
- CHECK OUT THE LATEST NBA STANDINGS AND KNICKS STATS
“Didn’t like how I was playing,” Brunson said. “Decided that I had to switch it; that simple.
“It’s the mentality of trying to get downhill, make plays, not being hesitant, not being passive. If there are mistakes, they’re aggressive mistakes. Don’t want to be on your heels. I just feel like the first two quarters, I was.”
The Rockets were doubling Brunson for most of the game, and he was deferring to his teammates. By crunch time, he changed course.
“Jalen was in a groove,” Brown said. “It didn’t matter who was on him; he found a way to score.”
Jose Alvarado had five points and three steals in that key fourth-quarter stretch as the Knicks mounted their comeback. They forced the Rockets into nine fourth-quarter turnovers and committed just one themselves.
Karl-Anthony Towns, whose involvement in the offense was a major talking point during the Knicks’ blowout loss to the Pistons on Thursday, added seven points in the fourth quarter and finished with a game-high 25. Brown credited Towns with challenging his teammates before the fourth quarter about their defense.
“I said, ‘We can win this game. I’ve seen us do it. It starts with the first possession of the fourth quarter, playing defense. We’ve gotta get a stop, it’s the most important possession of the game, the first play of the fourth quarter,’ ” Towns said. “I wanted to do my part as well. … I wanted to set the tone for our team and set the intensity level we needed to play for 12 minutes if we expected to come out with a win.”
OG Anunoby scored just four points in the second half after pacing the Knicks with 16 in the first half, but he drilled both free throws with 5.4 seconds left to ice the game. Landry Shamet added 14 points off the bench and played key minutes down the stretch — over Mikal Bridges, which has become a recurring move by Brown.
Durant entered the fourth quarter with 25 points but added just five the rest of the way on 2-for-7 shooting from the field. Three of those points came on a 3-pointer after Anunoby’s free throws. He also committed three of those fourth-quarter Rockets turnovers.
The Knicks defense had offered little resistance — just as in their loss to the Pistons — until clamping down in the fourth quarter. The Rockets were shooting over 50 percent from the field well into the fourth quarter but went just 3-for-12 in the final period.
“In the fourth quarter, our guys found a way,” Brown said. “They buckled down defensively.”
The Knicks were 12 minutes away from the alarm bells reemerging. But Brunson — and their defense — came alive and made sure they stayed away.