Jalen Brunson saves the day in Knicks’ 99-98 victory over Hornets

The captain came to save the day—and, boy, did the day need some saving, because these are the kinds of games the Knicks are supposed to win decisively, and a decisive victory was far from the result in Charlotte on Friday.

In a noon tipoff the day after Thanksgiving, and in the final stop of the five-game, 10-day roast trip, this team will take the win however it comes.

It’s been a mixed bag of highs and lows, however, for the Knicks (11-8), who improved to three games above-.500 and finished their five-game, mostly West Coast road trip with a 3-2 record following a 99-98 victory over a Hornets team without five of their top six scorers on Friday.

LaMelo Ball (left calf soreness), Miles Bridges, Tre Mann, Grant Williams, Mark Williams and Nick Richards all sat for Charlotte, with Brandon Miller the lone normal starter on the floor for the Hornets.

The outside expectation, of course, was that the Knicks would win this game by a landslide.

This is a roster constructed to compete for a title, a team that went all-in on championship contention after trading for Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges in the same offseason.

The Hornets, as fun as they may be, are not title contenders, even less so with so many players out due to injury.

“Outside looking in, you’re thinking they’ve got some key guys out, so this is supposed to be an easy game. That’s not how the NBA works. That’s a good team with good young guys,” Josh Hart told reporters at his locker after the game. “Early start. When guys are out, and other guys get shots, they go out there and be aggressive because they’ve got nothing to lose, so sometimes that’s the toughest game. So we’re able to come out with a W and end a long road trip with a win. Now we keep it moving”.

But it happened again: an inexplicably slow start for an offense that hung 145 points on the Denver Nuggets on Monday.

For the second game in a row, the Knicks scored just 15 points in the first quarter.

And for the second game in a row, they took a shorthanded team lightly, first in a rout by the Mavericks with Luka Doncic and Klay Thompson watching from the sidelines, then again on Friday against a Hornets team with hardly any recognizable names on the floor.

Which is why the day needed saving, and on this day, like so many others, the captain delivered.

Jalen Brunson scored a game-high 31 points on 9-of-18 shooting from the field, four-of-six from downtown, and 9-of-12 from the free throw line against the Hornets on Friday. He scored 11 of the Knicks’ last 15 points in the final 4:48 of the fourth quarter alone, answering the ball when his team called upon him in crunch-time.

“Yeah, he’s gonna find a way,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Brunson’s performance. “Just keep working.”

Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 5 assists, and Josh Hart added 13 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. Miles McBride also scored 14 points off the bench.

Without Ball and Bridges, the Hornets ran their offense through Brandon Miller, who had his moments, but largely struggled to break free from OG Anunoby’s defensive attention and finished with 20 points on 25 shot attempts and six turnovers in the game.

The Knick defense did its job: Charlotte shot 40.4 percent from the floor and 31.9 percent from three-point range, but uncharacteristic turnovers (19 for 31 Hornets points) and poor shooting performances from Anunoby and Mikal Bridges (combined 6-for-21 on Friday) stifled the offense to end its road trip.

“I’ve seen every offensive rating. Some have us second, some have us first. Right now I know fatigue is a factor because we turned the ball over a lot today, and the important thing was finding a way to win,” Thibodeau said after the game. “And we went to the offensive boards, and that’s probably the difference in the game: we had 19 (second-chance) points, they had 18, and we won by one. So whatever it is you have to do in the end, that’s what you have to do.”