Something special is happening here.
There haven’t been many bright moments for the Knicks against Stephen Curry since the Warriors drafted him in 2009.
But that became one of them on a Thursday night in San Francisco, when the Tom Thibodeau Knicks train arrived in California and set a .500 record.
The stars of the night were RJ Barrett, with his 28 points maximum in the race, and Julius Randle, who scored almost a triple double. No Curry.
“It’s a typical Thibs team,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr previously said. “Defend like crazy. They are building a base. ”
The Knicks went on to build a streak of victories that are now three games after closing Curry in the second half and beating the Warriors in an exciting 119-104 straight win.
“I don’t think we see ourselves as underestimated,” Randle said. “We see ourselves as a good team. We have pretty good confidence in the team. “
After looting the Warriors ’new digs in San Francisco, Thibodeau paid tribute to Golden State and downplayed his team’s 8-8 mark.
Before this four-game trip to the West began, Thibodeau said statistics showing the Knicks as the best defensive team in the league were not important. The Knicks coach said he only cared about wins and now his team has three consecutive wins to hang on the trophy wall.
It still wasn’t enough for Thibodeau to take his team’s unexpectedly solid start.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Thibodeau said. “It simply came to our notice then. There are things we have done well. We have had good victories. We also had games where we could play much better. We have to be honest with ourselves and know that there is a lot of work to be done, but we are improving and we are doing much better. “
Curry has forever haunted the Knicks franchise. The Warriors star reached a travel strip to the eighth pick in 09, where the Knicks waited with open arms.
All these years later, the Knicks and their defense finally found a night to savor against Curry.
For the first eight minutes of the game, Knicks striker Elfrid Payton kept Curry goalless. Curry got hot, scored 20 points at the break, and then stopped him in the second half. He filled his fourth-quarter trash stats to 30 points, but shot just 5 of 14 of 3.
“A guy like Curry is impossible to protect with a guy,” Thibodeau said. “I thought Elfrid was doing the job as well as you could. What you are trying to do is work as hard as you can for everything. ”
At the end of the third quarter, Curry coughed the ball and Randle, who recorded 16 points, 17 rebounds and nine assists, got it and started a fast that Barrett finished with a 12-point lead.
Barrett may be scratched, but he’s in his brightest career of his career, hitting the Warriors with relentless drives and even escaping the 3-point line for 2 of 3 marks.
“He’s playing a great overall game – he has a good mix of scoring and passing,” Thibodeau said.
Barrett’s quick cube came out of Curry’s fourth turnover, and that was the game. The Warriors scored 17 points in that third quarter and dragged the score 89-76 in the final period.
In the fourth quarter, Curry was on the bench, shaking his head. Either he wanted to go back to the game the second night back or he couldn’t believe his team was losing so badly against the Knicks,
The Warriors have the highest payroll in the league, the Knicks the lowest: $ 18 million below the salary cap. But the league’s growing defensive back continued to grind and got a stronger central game from the tandem of Mitchell Robinson and Nerlens Noel (four frames).
The Knicks also received help from the referees. Draymond Green picked up an early technique, deservedly, but a second at the end of the first half that led to his expulsion was a mistake by the referee. Green was calling a teammate, not the officers. Heck, the Knicks get the breaks.
They may be over 8-8 years old, but their pattern patients are watching this TV set. The Post has learned that the Knicks have increased 26 percent viewership on MSG Network over the past season at this time.
One might know before Kerr was worried that the Warriors might take the Knicks lightly. He said he was concerned about his team’s “energetic and emotional” state in the second stage of a back-to-back and that they had to rely on “fundamentals”.
For the third game in a row, the Knicks had the energy and another win as Thibodeau’s train ran out. Next stop: Sacramento.