Julius Randle finds ways to guide Knicks past Hornets, to seventh in a row
NEW YORK — To secure a win against the Charlotte Hornets, you’ve got to beat them at their own game.
The Hornets own a top-15 NBA defense and are jockeying for playoff position in the Eastern Conference, just three games behind the sixth-place Knicks. But any defense that doesn’t rank in the top five has visibly exploitable holes.
The Knicks identified those holes and exploited them early and often. Yes, the Hornets play an aggressive brand of defense, but they give up more 3-point takes and makes than any other team. The Knicks rained 3s, then rained in some more in an all-out barrage for their seventh straight win in a 109-97 victory over the Hornets on Tuesday.
The Knicks' seven-games win streak has helped them leapfrog the Boston Celtics for the Eastern Conference’s No. 5 seed.
New York ultimately hit 18 triples: six from RJ Barrett, five from Reggie Bullock and another four off the bench from rookie Immanuel Quickley. Julius Randle only made one 3, but he played the biggest role in the Knicks’ win.
What goes up must come down, and Randle was on the bull run for the ages. He had just earned Player of the Week honors alongside Golden State’s Stephen Curry, averaging 36 points over New York’s last four games.
It wasn’t a 36- or 26-point night for Randle, who finished with 16 points on just 5-of-16 shooting from the field and 1-of-6 shooting from 3-point range. The All-Star forward found another way to make an impact: by manipulating the Hornets defense to create open looks for his teammates.
Randle finished with seven assists, six of which directly led to open or semi-open 3-point looks. His impact was also apparent in hockey assists, which the NBA does not track, or passes that lead directly to assists for other players.
Randle did this often, drawing the double team in the high post, then kicking to the open teammate, who in turn made a touch-pass to the corner shooter. Derrick Rose (17 points) finished with five assists off the bench, but at least two of them — 3s corner threes for Barrett and Bullock — were a byproduct of the attention Randle drew.
The Knicks were in a shootout early. Charlotte’s PJ Washington (26 points, six 3-pointers) hit five 3s and scored 17 points in the first quarter alone. After the Knicks built a nine-point lead, the Hornets switched to a zone defense that stifled what coach Tom Thibodeau was trying to have his players execute on the floor.
Zone defenses, however, have exploitable holes on the corner, and the Knicks were able to run action to generate looks for their shooters. Barrett, who scored 24 points, tied a career-high by hitting six 3s on the night. Knicks fans showered Bullock with cheers during his walk-off interview after he came up big, and they walked out of Madison Square Garden with their heads high.
The Knicks are one of the hottest teams in basketball, led by a star who finds different ways to impact winning. On a night where he couldn’t get his shot to drop, Randle helped create looks for his teammates to secure the W.
