Knicks 98, Magic 74: “Never question Precious effort.”

Did the Knicks make history on Friday? No. Were they reasonably close? You can build a case these days.

If you have not been living under a rock for the past few years, then you already know the vibes of the current NBA. The game is about a bucket more than it ever has, and scoring 120+ points a night is now the norm, not the exception anymore. This is, in fact, the 10th consecutive season in which teams across the Association are putting up 100+ points per game.

This is, however, the highest-scoring year ever with all 30 teams combining for an average of 115 PPG, a figure unheard of before this the year 2024 of our lord. In this economy of bucket-getting, your New York Knickerbockers welcomed Orlando to Madison Square Garden right before the weekend and put the clamps on the Magic so hard that all the Florida Bancheros could do was score 76 points through 48 minutes of playing time. Sheesh...

Again, not history per se, but close to it. It’s the first time since Dec. 2020 a team was limited to fewer than 75 points. That has only happened three times in the last six calendar years.

Anyway, look at this beauty.

I know, I know, it’s “only” the no. 4 seed and it’s just your Knicks sitting 0.5 games above the Magic. Keywords: above, Magic.

Now, for the bad news, Orlando holds the tiebreaker against the Knicks as they finished the regular-season series against New York with a 3-1 record in such games. That said, these two won’t meet again until (if ever) the postseason, and when (if) that happens, there might be a little bit of fear running through the young Magic players’ bloodstreams knowing the last time they went against the lads clad in Orange and Blue all they do was, well, putting on a stinking game.

Kudos go to Jalen Brunson for returning on Friday (“Seven o’clock is when I found out I was playing,” he revealed after the game) instead of delaying his comeback for Sunday in the first of two back-to-back matchups against the Sixers in Manhattan.

Brunson played almost 28 minutes and folks out there were clamoring for coach Thibs to sit him late with the lead up to 20 points... something that surprisingly Thomas Joseph Thibodeau Jr. ended up (kinda) doing. Of course, Thibs is Thibs, so he still threw Brunson to the fire for a five-minute span in the final frame with New York’s lead up to 23 points when he finally called it a day.

The point guard led all players with 26 points shooting 11-of-19 from the floor while adding a low-yet-useful three rebounds and two assists to his stat line. Not bad for a quick return!

Was Brunson important to get the win? Of course, he was, and of course, we keep taking this little sturdy man sent from the basketball heavens (or Texas, whatever you prefer) for granted.

But the man of the minute was none other than Nigeria-born, Bronx-raised Precious Achiuwa.

Chi-Chi has had his fair share of ups and downs since becoming a certified Knickerbocker last December. Most (not me, for the record) saw him as a mere throw-in in the OG Anunoby trade, just a warm body and salary-matching sheet of paper to make the deal work in the eyes of NBA HQ.

Achiuwa only topped 20 minutes once (by eight seconds...) in his first 10 games donning New York Knicks threads. He played more than 15 minutes just three times in that span, from Jan. 1 through Jan. 18. After that, however, he started to feature a bit more during the next four games and he finally was forced into a starting role because of the injuries suffered by OG and Julius Randle.

Since he was named the starting PF of the Knicks for the first time back on Jan. 29, Precious has done it for 17 consecutive games while averaging close to a 13-9-1-1-2 line in 36 minutes of playing time.

On Friday, roaming the floor and hunting for 39 rounds of the clock, Achiuwa scored 15 points while pulling down 14 rebounds, dishing out four dimes, committing two thefts, and blocking more shots than he had ever done in a single game before: five molly-whopped attempts from the floor were the ones swatted by the man!

Do you know how many players have blocked 5+ shots at least once this season? 35. Do you know how many did it while scoring 2+ 3-point shots? 11. And adding 10+rebounds on top of that? Six. Only two, Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama (in case you were wondering, yes, the future of the League looks healthy) have done it more times than Achiuwa against the Magic on Friday.

As foiegrastyle told us in the Game Thread: “Never question Precious effort.”

Isaiah Hartenstein keeps fighting his healing Achilles (20 minutes played) while OG is inching closer than ever to making his return, which is expected to happen as soon as next week, potentially even on the second matchup against Philly (Tuesday).

Meanwhile, Jericho Sims and Precious patrolled the paint nicely. Nobody outside of the latter and Brunson was truly remarkable on Friday, but the collective effort was what determined the game.

Josh Hart, who scored 19 adding seven rebounds and four assists against the Magic, said it best. “We were just really aggressive, on the ball, off the ball, rotations, we were just really in sync today.”

Former Nova teammate Donte DiVincenzo tied Hart’s minutes on the court with 42 apiece, though DiVo found the net just 3-of-13 times for 11 points compared to Hart’s 8-of-12 accurate shooting outing.

For a change, Alec Burks had an MVP-caliber game. Nah, that’s cap, just checking if you were still paying attention. He stank with no points on two shots in five minutes. Shake Milton debuted as a Knick and Charlie Brown Jr. made a one-minute cameo getting on the court subbed in a part of the same package that saw Milton grace the Garden hardwood for the first time since he became a Knickerbocker.

You know what’s funny? Burks put up a 0-0-0-0-0 stat line with a minus-2 plus/minus in five minutes. Milton and Brown combined for a 0-0-0-0-0 in two minutes with each posting a +2 on the +/- column. AB, my man.

Fellow scribe Kento Kato is a downer and he projected an L on Friday’s game. Eat that one, Kento! (I love you, no biggie). If all goes according to his forecast, flipping that L for the actual W, then the Knicks are going to go 15-5 in their final 20 games and 14-5 in the 19 games left.

That means the Knicks are potentially looking at a solid 51-31 regular-season record. Not bad! Better, ESPN’s projected 99.2% chance of making the playoffs and 93.2% chance of avoiding the play-in... which means I’m going to hibernate for the next month. Wake me up when the (regular) season ends, and then join me to enjoy the real show.

Philly, we comin’.