Jalen Brunson’s players only meeting seems to have worked.
Brunson and the New York Knicks cruised to a blowout 120-66 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night, which snapped a four-game losing skid. The 54-point win was the largest in franchise history.
“A win. That was the most important thing, just finding a way to break the ice and get one in the left column,” Karl-Anthony Towns said, via The Associated Press. “So good game, good day for us to show what we’re capable of, but consistency is what makes champions and we’ve got to find that consistency and bring this kind of intensity and energy and execution every single night.”
The Knicks led almost the entire way on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden, and they opened the contest on an 18-6 run. They held the Nets to just 18 points in the second quarter, which sent them into the locker room with a 22-point lead, and then pushed that to 32 points by the end of the third period.
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Brunson and the rest of the Knicks starters were pulled at that point, but their reserves still opened the fourth quarter on a 16-0 tear to secure the blowout win.
Brunson had 20 points and five assists to lead the Knicks. Landry Shamet added 18 points off the bench, shooting a perfect 6-of-6 from behind the arc, and Towns added 14 points and eight rebounds. The Knicks shot 50% from behind the arc, and more than doubled the Nets up on the glass.
Michael Porter Jr. led the Nets with 12 points and six rebounds. Ziaire Williams was the only other player to hit double figures with his 11 points off the bench. The Nets have now lost 13 straight to the Knicks. Their last win in the series came back in January 2023.
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While a singular blowout win over the Nets is one thing, it came on the heels of what has been a rough stretch for the Knicks. The team entered Wednesday night having lost nine of their last 11 games, and they were booed heavily at Madison Square Garden in each of their last two losses. After Monday’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks, Brunson called a meeting to try and turn things around.
“I’d be booing us too, straight up,” Brunson said on Monday night.
The Knicks now hold a 26-18 record entering Saturday night’s contest with the Philadelphia 76ers. That game, while just a mid-January bout, will be a better measure of if the meeting actually did its job.
“This was a good step for us, but we’ve got to continue to press the issue of getting better every single day,” Brunson said.
