Sah what a pleasureSo here’s what you have to tell yourself this morning if you’re 18 and a Knicks fan. The more the days go by and the closer the New York franchise gets to an incredible qualification for the Playoffs, play-in at least, and the more the days go by the more… the name of Julius Randle settles among the names to be written on the stabilo in the history of the Garden.
The boxscore of Julius’ new mixtape, it’s right here
The pressure was there, with this trip to the Mavericks, also in search of Playoffs and just crowned with a champagne / glitter victory in Memphis thanks to a new trick of their favorite magician. The pressure of an almost historic victory, since in case of success the Knicks would validate a fifth victory in a row, “crazy” which has not been seen in New York since … 2014. Seven years of galleys or even shame, seven years of disappointments in the chain, but seven years about to be forgotten to make way for the big parade, the one that these Knicks 2020-21 will undoubtedly deserve at the end of the season. Because the course is so far more than clean, and because the victory of the night thus confirms once again the solidity of the group of Tom Thibodeau.
Yes, the Knicks won last night, again, and their victory does not breathe any dispute against Mavs simply less strong than them. A sometimes brilliant Luka Doncic but very often put under the extinguisher by the defensive pressure, a Kristaps Porzingis sometimes sharp but very often clumsy, and a supporting cast not at the level, unlike that of his opponents of the evening, in mode all on the same wavelength, in mode you come home it’s to leave your skin there. A group united around its leader, we come, but above all a group in which no ugly duckling comes out, since that night … even Frank Ntilikina had the right to his five minutes, and not in garbage time this time -this. In the absence of Alec Burks the Frenchman was able to seize his chance, to the detriment of an almost unused Immanuel Quickley, and at his side the Taj Gibson, Nerlens Noel or Elfrid Payton once again perfectly fulfilled their market share, namely to stifle the opposing attack. On the other side of the field? Some firecrackers lit by Reggie Bullock, a very good news from bench captain Derrick Rose, an offensive RJ Barrett, more and more skilful and sure of his choices, and therefore a Julius Randle who has still put grain to grind in his candidacy of potential MIP at the same time as he passed the Texas defense to the mill.
15 pawns from the start, from near and especially from afar, Julius is unstoppable and already the evening promises to be much too long for the cowboys. Especially since the beast … will never stop its work, and probably it is also still in the process of stringing together the strings as we speak. In real point forward, distributing the game perfectly when he was not stuffing all the guys sent on him, the inside of the Knicks thus chained, minute after minute, to achieve one of his biggest games in career, in a list which is definitely growing longer since its recent advent under the Thibodeau era. The Mavs will never find a way to stop the sniper, just in his choices and sure of himself, and in the end, the new Prince of New York will crack a 44-point record at 16/29 shooting including 6/11 from the parking lot, 10 rebounds and 7 assists, thus becoming the first Knicks player since Melo in 2014 to line up several games with forty pawns in the same season, and the first since Bernard King in… 1985 to put a game over 40/10/5 under the colors from NYK.
So add to that a series of five victories for the Knicks, a first there too since 2014, a sixth place which only asks to be abandoned for even higher spheres and a calendar offering New York meetings against Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans and Toronto in the next ten days, and you therefore get the ingredients of a recipe that has been lost for a long time in the Big Apple: that of smiling, quite simply.
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