Two weeks ago, the lowly Sacramento Kings dealt the Knicks one of their worst losses of the season.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s rematch, Knicks head coach Mike Brown was asked what his team needed to do better this time around.
“Everything,” said Brown, who coached the Kings from 2022-24.
“They punched us in the mouth, and we didn’t respond well.”
And while it took more than three quarters and an unusual closing lineup to finally put the undermanned Kings away, the Knicks survived with a 103-87 victory Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
“It was an ugly game,” Jalen Brunson said. “It wasn’t pretty, but we were able to grind it out and find a way to win, and I think that’s very important for us.”
Karl-Anthony Towns made a pair of fourth-quarter 3-pointers, then spent the final 6:51 on the bench as Brown rode a lineup of Brunson, Miles McBride, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Mitchell Robinson to the finish line.
Before Tuesday, that five-man lineup had played only 23 minutes together this season.
“At the end of the game, we had a group out on the floor that was playing well,” Brown said. “This was a tight ball game, so I just rode that group to the end of the game, which I’ve done before. … We need to get the win.”
With the score tied 72-72 to begin the fourth quarter, Towns made a 3-pointer on the Knicks’ first possession with Brunson on the bench.
When Brunson subbed back in with 6:51 to go and the Knicks leading by four, Towns went to the bench.
Brunson then scored 11 of his team-high 28 points down the stretch as the Knicks (28-18) iced the win.
“We got the win,” Towns said. “That’s the most important thing. That’s all I care about, New York cares about, this team cares about.”
Brown also staggered Brunson and Towns’ first-half minutes, just as he did in Sunday’s 112-109 win in Philadelphia. In that victory, the Knicks went on a second-half run with Towns on the bench due to foul trouble.
Towns finished Tuesday’s win with 17 points on 5-of-15 shooting with 11 rebounds.
In the final 6:51, the Knicks held Sacramento (12-36) to only nine points. They outscored the Kings, 31-15, in the final quarter.
That was enough for the Knicks to overcome a season-high 21 turnovers.
It was also enough to survive a big game from Kings star DeMar DeRozan, who exploded for 34 points on a night Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray and Malik Monk sat out with injuries.
“Our attention to detail, our focus, those are big components for us,” Brunson said. “We have the ability to be a really good team if we do those things. The little things have to be important.”
Tuesday marked the second time this season that Brown faced the Kings, with whom he went 107-88 over parts of three seasons as head coach.
He was the unanimous NBA Coach of the Year for the 2022-23 season after he led the long-suffering Kings to a 48-34 record to snap their 16-year playoff drought – the longest in NBA history.
But the Kings were 13-18 when they fired Brown less than midway through the 2024-25 season, not even seven months after he signed a multi-year extension worth $8.5 million annually.
The Knicks hired Brown in July, replacing Tom Thibodeau.
Sacramento is now 39-60 (.394) since firing Brown, but one of those wins came against the Knicks, 112-101, on Jan. 14 in Sacramento.
That defeat came amid a 2-9 stretch for the Knicks, who have since won nine in a row.
“It’s good to win any game,” Towns said. “[We beat] a team that had our number the last game and [against whom] we showed one of our worst versions of ourselves. It was good to come out here and find a better version of ourselves and find ourselves winning.”
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