Teams returning to the East Coast following an arduous western road trip often experience a clunker in their first game back in their home city, but both the Knicks and the Nets entered their first meeting of the season Wednesday night in that situation.
It was the Knicks who looked more rested and far sharper than their Brooklyn counterparts, coasting to a 121-102 win over the skidding Nets at Barclays Center.
Julius Randle led the way with 26 points and Donte DiVincenzo scored 23 with five made 3-pointers for the Knicks, who had gone 2-2 in four games out west — gaining the coveted split with a gritty win Monday over LeBron James and the Lakers.
“The start of the game, I knew it’d be a challenge, more of a mental challenge just to go out there [as] the road trip continues,” Tom Thibodeau said after the game. “But the ball goes up and we gotta be ready to go. And I loved how we started the game; it had a defensive tone to it.
“Like I said going into the game, every game you can find a reason, right, to use an excuse and we don’t want to do that, Whether it’s an injury, long road trip, a back-to-back, In-Season Tournament, whatever it is, just be ready to go. When they tell us the ball’s going up at this time, we’re ready.”
Jalen Brunson finished with 16 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, while Immanuel Quickley registered 19 points and RJ Barrett added 14.
Josh Hart also contributed 10 points and 13 rebounds in 31 minutes as the Knicks improved to 16-11 entering Saturday’s return home to the Garden against the Bucks.
Cam Johnson and Cam Thomas netted 20 points apiece for the Nets, who have dropped six of seven after winning only once in five games — against traded-away superstar Kevin Durant and the Suns in Phoenix — on their eight-day western jaunt. Mikal Bridges missed 17 of 21 field-goal attempts and finished with 15 points for Brooklyn (13-14).
“We’re letting teams go on runs and not responding appropriately or in a way that’s productive,” Johnson said. “Some games are just getting away from us to a point where we have to learn to trust one another and be able to weather storms and quickly spin it around to our direction.”
Before the game, both coaches downplayed the idea of a local rivalry, with Nets coach Jacque Vaughn saying of his sliding team, “We’re just trying to get a win. The road trip wasn’t the way we wanted it to be, so can we get back on the winning side?”
Asked about the Knicks fans typically coming out in force at Barclays Center, however, Randle said, “That’s always fun. Obviously it’s the crosstown rivalry, but in the grand scheme of things, as Thibs says, it’s just another game for us to keep building and getting better.”
The Knicks led by 12 through one quarter, with Randle scoring a dozen points, while the Nets shot just 25 percent (6-for-24) from the floor.
Vaughn’s squad found its outside touch early in the second, using two treys by Royce O’Neale, two more by Johnson and another by Spencer Dinwiddie to close within five barely five minutes into the period,
Still, Bridges clanked nine of 10 shots before halftime, and Randle’s 19 points led three Knicks in double figures for a 60-51 advantage at intermission.
The Knicks then poured in the first 11 points of the third quarter, including a dunk by Isaiah Hartenstein, a transition bucket by Barrett and another triple by DiVincenzo for a 20-point cushion.
The Nets chipped away, however, with Bridges burying a 3-pointer to complete a run that halved the 20-point hole to 82-72.
A tip-in by Nic Claxton closed the deficit to seven late in the quarter, but a scoop-shot from the baseline by Quickley on the Knicks’ final possession gave them a 90-77 lead entering the final period on their way to a 19-point victory.
“We started off with good energy, and usually games like this, end of a road trip, there’s fatigue, and it’s easy to give in,” Randle said. “We had good energy from the start and it carried us through.”
