{"id":629851,"date":"2023-04-16T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/16\/julius-randle-returns-jalen-brunson-and-josh-hart-star-as-knicks-edge-cavs-in-game-1-the-athletic\/"},"modified":"2023-04-16T05:45:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T10:45:00","slug":"julius-randle-returns-jalen-brunson-and-josh-hart-star-as-knicks-edge-cavs-in-game-1-the-athletic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/16\/julius-randle-returns-jalen-brunson-and-josh-hart-star-as-knicks-edge-cavs-in-game-1-the-athletic\/","title":{"rendered":"Julius Randle returns, Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart star as Knicks edge Cavs in Game 1 – The Athletic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CLEVELAND \u2014 Julius Randle<\/a> saved just enough for one last jump. He knew he had it in him, too.<\/p>\n

He began tracking the basketball as soon as teammate Jalen Brunson<\/a> rose for a jumper on the other side of the court. With under 10 seconds to go and the New York Knicks<\/a> clinging to a two-point lead, whatever energy was still in those legs would go into one final leap. The basketball ricocheted off the rim. Randle soared for it, grabbed it 10 feet above the court and lobbed it out to Quentin Grimes<\/a>, who sealed the Knicks\u2019 first playoff win in two years with a couple of free throws.<\/p>\n

New York now leads Cleveland<\/a> 1-0 in its first-round series after a 101-97 victory<\/a> Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Randle was not perfect during his return from a sprained left ankle. He missed 13 of 20 shots and scored only three points in the second half after coming out firing. Heck, he even took a risk trying for what is now the biggest offensive rebound in a season littered with big-time boards. Because Evan Mobley<\/a>, the Cavaliers player responsible for guarding Randle, was shading so far off him to monitor Brunson, Randle had a lane to the hoop. If he hadn\u2019t come up with the ball, though, the Knicks would have been vulnerable to a fast break.<\/p>\n

But he got it. Because this is what All-Stars do. Need a play, and they\u2019ll make it \u2014 bad ankle and all.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just about winning the game at that point,\u201d said Randle, who finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. \u201cI don\u2019t think J.B.\u2019s going to miss, but if he does, get on the glass, try to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the outside, it wasn\u2019t clear if Randle would participate in Game 1. The last time he played was March 29, when he sprained his ankle against the Miami Heat<\/a>. He never went through contact drills in practice. The Knicks listed him as questionable coming into the evening.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the typical Randle experience, even once the team deemed him good to go less than an hour before tipoff.<\/p>\n

Normally, Randle plays for at least the beginning nine minutes. Sometimes, he\u2019ll stay in for the entire first quarter. On Saturday, head coach Tom Thibodeau subbed him out less than five minutes into the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee me breathing out there today? I was tired. I was tired as hell for sure,\u201d Randle said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we have such a great team. Able to lean on the guys: J.B., Josh (Hart), everybody. We\u2019re able to pick each other up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late in the game, it was Randle picking up Brunson, skying for one final rebound, his 10th of the evening. Only a play earlier, it was Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a> doing the lifting, slapping a miss from Hart out to the perimeter for another second-chance opportunity, which led to Brunson floating in an 8-footer.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

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<\/span>
\n Knicks guard Jalen Brunson celebrates two of his 27 points against the Cavaliers on Saturday night at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland. (Jason Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Leave it to this group to seal its first playoff game in two years with clutch offensive boards. After all, this is what the Knicks do.<\/p>\n

No other playoff team relies more on snagging its misses to score. There are moments when the Knicks\u2019 best offense is a clunker, if only because a way-off jumper might as well be a pass to Hartenstein, Hart or Mitchell Robinson<\/a>. It felt that way at times in Game 1.<\/p>\n

The Cavs are big up front with Mobley and Jarrett Allen<\/a>, but they\u2019re still vulnerable on the boards.<\/p>\n

Nearly half the time the Knicks missed a shot in Game 1, they got another. They grabbed 17 offensive rebounds \u2014 42 percent of their misses.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to get a body to them,\u201d Thibodeau said. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s one of the things we do well. We\u2019ve been a good rebounding team all year. We know that\u2019s a big part of our game. And we\u2019re going to have to continue to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebounding a bunch of your misses is a good way to save yourself. Thibodeau repeated the same message during his postgame news conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we\u2019re gonna have to play a lot better than we did tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

They were frenetic early, as were many of the Cavs. Brunson picked up a couple of early fouls, which sent him to the bench. A third foul only minutes into the second quarter sent him to his seat once again. Thibodeau mentioned defensive issues, though he wasn\u2019t specific about the critique. He may have been referring to the way the team guarded Donovan Mitchell<\/a>, who went for 38 points and got into a rhythm pulling up from long range.<\/p>\n

New York didn\u2019t shoot the ball well. RJ Barrett<\/a> was only 2 of 12. Grimes made only one shot. Immanuel Quickley<\/a> didn\u2019t make any. Robinson tried two layups that missed the rim entirely.<\/p>\n

But they picked up each other. Brunson finished with 27 points in only 29 minutes. Twenty-one of those came in the second half. Josh Hart<\/a> went for 17 points and 10 boards, including five offensive ones, during his playoff debut. Obi Toppin<\/a> helped New York on a mini-run in the third quarter after Cleveland looked like it was about to take over.<\/p>\n

The Knicks crushed the Cavs in the bench minutes. What became clear early is that Cleveland trusts only seven players. Allen and Darius Garland<\/a> played nearly the whole second half. Mitchell did play the whole second half, which ended poetically \u2014 and not just because a group thirsty for offensive rebounds recovered a couple more to close out a victory.<\/p>\n

It was as if the basketball gods were paying the Knicks back for the bad fortune of the past.<\/p>\n

Only a couple of years ago, the Knicks lost a similar Game 1 to the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>. With under a minute to go in a tie game, Alec Burks<\/a> pulled up for a potential go-ahead shot but hit the back of the rim. The ball bounced to Knicks big man Taj Gibson<\/a> and Hawks center Clint Capela<\/a>, who fought for it so mightily that it trickled away into the hands of Trae Young<\/a>, who gave Atlanta the lead on the ensuing possession.<\/p>\n

The Knicks lost that evening and fell in the series in five games.<\/p>\n

They hope a bounce going right for them this time can mean a different ending.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny how things turn, right?\u201d Randle said. \u201cYeah, we were in the same position two years ago. \u2026 That experience was important for us. It brought us to this point here. Great first game for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Photo of Dean Wade<\/a> and Julius Randle: Jason Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Leigha Redner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 Julius Randle saved just enough for one last jump. He knew he had it in him, too. He began tracking the basketball as soon as teammate Jalen Brunson rose for a jumper on the other side of the court. With under 10 seconds to go and the New York Knicks clinging to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,45954,45955],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-financial","category-julius","category-randle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}