Knicks Bulletin: “We came out and we handled our business.”

The Knicks came back from the break much healthier than they entered it and it showed as they visited the Sixers in Philadelphia on Thursday and came back home with a sound and solid win under their collective wing, 110-96.

New York saw three of their main supporters make their returns to the floor in Bojan Bogdanovic, Donte DiVincenzo, and (on a minute restriction) Isaiah Harteinstein and their presence proved to be key on a bad day at the office by NYK linchpin Jalen Brunson.

Here is what coach Tom Thibodeau and his pupils had to say before and after Thursday’s victory.

Tom Thibodeau

On the Knicks’ performance at Philadelphia, where the turnovers could have hurt the team...

“The defense was good. Low field goal percentage. We held their scoring down. The rebounding was good. We got away with the turnover thing, we’ve gotta cut that down. But when they were going against our set defense, it was pretty good‚ and when you do that you’ll be in position to win regardless of who you have out there.”

“We know if we do those three things (rebounding, low turnovers, low opposition FG%), we’ll be in position to win, and if we share the ball and make plays for each other, the game becomes easy and we’ll find a rhythm, and I thought that’s what we did.”

On Bojan Bogdanovic’s 22-point performance and Alec Burks’ contributions...

“[Bogdanovic’s three-point shooting] was huge. It gave us a big cushion and I thought he—and Alec [Burks] gave us a good lift as well—but Bogi’s shots opened up the floor for us. That was a big factor in building that lead. And we know right now we’re undermanned, so we have to make the threes.”

On Jalen Brunson’s making the most of a day off on the shooting front...

“Jalen—the 12 assists. He didn’t have his rhythm offensively shooting the ball but made a lot of good plays. Just find a way to win and that’s what we’ve gotta do.”

On the importance of beating whoever is in front of them, no matter if it’s the Sixers (Thursday) or the Pistons (next Monday)...

“Every game counts the same. We gotta scratch ’em (wins) out right now.”

On having Bogey, DiVo, and iHart back and playing after the break...

“Yeah, well, whoever we have, we gotta get the job done. That’s the nature of the game. People have injuries, but we’re missing our starting frontcourt, so we have to understand how hard we have to play and if you can play, you should be out there, so I think that’s a big part of this.”

On keeping a winning, full-effort mindset to stay above water while waiting for the return of the starters still sidelined...

“You have to have the belief that you can win every game. So whoever is being called upon, get in there and get the job done.”

“We’ve got to get people back—It’s not going to happen overnight. There’s an urgency to this. We can keep talking about kicking it down the road. We can’t keep kicking it down the road. We’ve got to be ready now.”

“We’re undermanned right now. Our starting frontcourt is not there so we know we have to play hard as hell. We know if we do that we’ll have a chance to win.”

Isaiah Hartenstein

On returning to the court after missing time albeit on a minute-limit basis...

“It’s good, feel a lot better. Feel like I’m in a good spot. Going to slowly ramp it up and get ready for the playoffs push. The break helped a lot.“

“It felt good. It was a little frustrating not to get to my minute requirement (Hartenstein was expected to play 20 minutes). So that was a little frustrating. But still day by day. It felt good. So got to keep building. And hopefully next game, I hit my minute mark.”

“From a building-up standpoint, that was the only thing that was a little frustrating. We just have to gradually build it up. I think it’ll be hard to go from 10 [minutes] straight to 30. But we’ll see the next couple games.”

On what was wrong with his injury and suffering possible setbacks going forward...

“It was like a mixture. That was the main thing, it just got really irritated. The mixture between landing and Dwight Powell landing on it at the same time. Nothing crazy. Just more we had to make sure that it kind of settled down. It’s something like—it gets irritated, it always happens. We’re not scared of it popping. So the Knicks (staff) do a good job, we test a lot. The strength is there. We’re not scared of it popping or anything like that.”

Jalen Brunson

On the win over the Sixers even though it took a bit more effort than they initially expected...

“We want to play our best basketball in the fourth. I don’t think we did, but we did enough to win the game, and we had a big enough lead to where we had a good cushion to win the game. We found a way to win, and that’s all that matters.”

Donte DiVincenzo

On New York missing players for a large chunk of the (mid)season and how important that is going forward...

“You would like to have the whole unit together as much as possible, but in the grand scheme of things as long as you’re going into the last little bit of the season with everybody going into playoffs, that’s when you want to be playing your best basketball. You don’t want to be playing your best basketball in December. You want to be playing it going into April.”

“It doesn’t matter how many games we get in (with everybody healthy) as long as we go into the playoffs feeling that mental side of confidence.”

On getting players back from injury and entering the postseason with everybody available to play in April and May...

”I think, first and foremost, we want to get everybody healthy. However long that takes I think we have enough people on the team to ride that wave. Then once we get everybody back—like I said, it doesn’t feel as depleted right now—so once we get those guys back it’s just going to take us to a whole other level.”

“Everybody coming in after the break, there’s just a different level of energy. Everybody’s kind of feeling like we’re on pace to get everybody back. Feeling confident in everybody making progress and everything, for the home stretch and the push. It doesn’t feel like, you know, we’re down a lot of bodies anymore, even though we still have a few out. It doesn’t feel as depleted.”

On not sleeping on their laurels and working toward improving during the final third of the regular season...

“We weren’t playing our best basketball in January, but we were playing damn good basketball. I think going into the home stretch of the season with who we have available has to take that to another level.”

”Then, once we get those guys back they have to take us to another level. To get where we were in January is going to be one thing, but I think like I said we have another level to get to. Everybody’s confident we can get there going into the playoffs.”

On teammate Jalen Brunson making the All-Star for the first time in his career...

“It was really cool. I’m proud of him. Take all the basketball stuff away, just his family, and then he has everybody around him, it’s a credit to all of them. He’s the one in the all-star game, but everybody around him has put in a lot of time and made sacrifices for him. Including himself. To see that is awesome, I’m so proud of him.”

Josh Hart

On the remaining games on the Knicks schedule and what’s left to be done by the team...

“Everything pre-All-Star, obviously is important and big. But these next 27 games—this is really when it really starts, really begins. That’s all you got to focus on.”

”I think the biggest thing last year, at this point, I was on a different team (Portland, before he was traded to New York) that wasn’t going to make the playoffs. So it’s cool to see the preparation last year. Now I’m kind of understanding that aspect a little bit more, and focusing on that 27 games and making sure that as a team, and individually, got to be clicking on all cylinders.”

On the Knicks' current standing in the Eastern Conference and the outlook for the remainder of the season...

“Where do I see us right now? The fourth seed, That’s where we are.”

“Take it day by day. Obviously, by the end of that you want to be the highest seed possible. So there’s going to be lucky breaks, unlucky breaks for teams. At the end of the day we just got to figure out what we do well and at this point in the season, you want to be playing your best basketball.”

“If guys (from other teams) are out that benefits us in terms of us trying to get a higher seed. But we can’t control it. We have no idea when Joel (Embiid) is coming back. The Bucks can come back and be undefeated with Doc (Rivers). You just really don’t know. That’s why you have to focus on your own self.”

Bojan Bogdanovic

On Jalen Brunson helping his teammates, including him, on an off-day shooting by the point guard...

“I think especially Jalen did a great job because the [Sixers were] doubling him and kind of blitzing him. He’s great at just giving up the ball and getting those hockey assists for all of us. So I had a couple open shots and then was kind of easy after that.”

On his return to the court after missing the last game before the All-Star break...

“It’s always fun when you and your team play well. As long as your team is winning, you’ll have fun.”

Precious Achiuwa

On the win against the Sixers...

“We came out and we handled our business.”