The Knicks struggled to take advantage during the three-game losing streak they achieved in Detroit Saturday night.
This time, however, they managed to quickly build such an insurmountable advantage that coach Tom Thibodeau even let Julius Randle rest throughout the fourth quarter.
Randle had started to burn and offered a blunt first quarter to lead the Knicks to a 125-81 victory over the Pistons at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.
Randle, who had struggled Friday in a home loss to the Mavericks, finished with 29 points and Reggie Bullock added 22. The two combined to shoot 17-for-28 and 11-for-19 from the range. 3 points, much of his arrival as the Knicks opened up a 30-point lead in the first half. RJ Barrett, who also had a Friday night, scored 14 points and Elfrid Payton scored 11 points and nine assists.
The Knicks (25-25) shot up 53.8 percent (and 47.4 percent from depth) to get a three-game losing streak and return to .500. They have a showdown against the Nets waiting for Monday after Sunday’s well-deserved day off.
Randle was the face of the Knicks ’struggles in the first half of the back-to-back, scoring just 14 points in the 5-on-20 shot (including 1-on-7 from depth) on Friday in a little characteristic night for the All-Star. He wasn’t alone, as the Knicks shot just 36 percent off the field against the Mavericks, their third-worst mark of the season, and gained a double-digit lead for a second straight game.
But Randle immediately made sure Saturday would have a very different ending.
In the Knicks’ first two possessions, Randle drained a 3-corner pointer and then punched another from the other corner. In two possessions, he had made more than three points than he had done all Friday night. And it was just beginning.
At first it was the Randle and Bullock show. The two combined to score 28 of the Knicks ’first 30 points, including a pair of treys per piece during a 14-0 run in the first 3 ¹ / ₂ minutes. Randle needed just 6:53 to beat his total scorer since Friday night. He finished the first quarter with 20 points while Bullock scored 14. The two combined to shoot 8-on-12 from beyond the arc in the first 12 minutes.
The result: The Knicks scored 41 points in the season in the first quarter as they advanced 41-15 in the second.
The lead grew to 30 points in the first half, when a Derrick Rose jumper put the Knicks 51-21 early in the second quarter. The Pistons finally started fighting there, following a 13-3 run to reduce the Knicks ’60-41 lead at halftime.
Perhaps most importantly, the Knicks came out in the third quarter and showed few signs of letting go. After gaining a nine-point lead against the Heat on Monday, an 18-point lead against the Timberwolves on Wednesday and a 13-point lead against the Mavericks on Friday, the Knicks kept their foot on the gas pedal in the second half . The Pistons scored 17 points in the third quarter before the Knicks advanced again to 27 (88-61) toward the fourth.
Before the game, Thibodeau had pointed out that the lack of ball movement hurt the Knicks and that key players weren’t throwing well in Friday’s 99-86 loss to the Mavericks. On Saturday, they got both.
“The most important thing is that when our main guys don’t have a good night, we still have to do everything else to get up on each other – from the projection to the movement of the ball to finishing our spacing and that kind of things, ”Thibodeau said. “But it is something we are capable of, we understand it. It requires energy and effort. It’s a long season and things have to be overcome. “