BOSTON — Jose Alvarado shot an airball on a corner three. Then he picked Jaylen Brown’s pockets with one of his trademark back court steals before finishing the play with a transition layup — and some words for the Celtics bench.
“[Boston’s bench] basically said, I was going to miss. And I said, ‘That’s how you get it back,’ you know what I’m saying?” he explained after his Knicks debut ended in an unequivocal success. “Who cares about the miss if you get it back on the back tip and lay-up? And it worked out in my favor.”
Alvarado, who the Knicks acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans after trading Guerschon Yabusele to the Chicago Bulls, scored 12 points in 25 minutes on 5-of-12 shooting from the floor in New York’s 111-89 victory over the Celtics on Friday. He finished the game with two steals on the night. The Knicks had 18 deflections as a team against the Celtics, and Alvarado alone accounted for six.
“Going into the game, I had him around 22, 23 [minutes] and he ended up playing 25,” head coach Mike Brown said after the game. “He was really good for us.”
The Knicks used Alvarado in a variety of ways, most notably in spurts as a primary defender on Boston’s two-pronged scoring attack of All-Star starter Jaylen Brown and sixth man Payton Pritchard. Brown scored 26 points but shot 11-of-25 from the field to get there, and Pritchard mustered just six points, 11 fewer than his season average, on just one-of-six shooting from three-point range.
“Obviously they know my passion is defense, and they know they trust in me and believe in me and they let me be myself,” he said after his debut. “They keep saying go out there and be yourself and everything goes the way we need it to go.”
“Pritchard is a great player, obviously not on the level that Jaylen Brown is, but to have somebody like Jose to guard Pritchard, he’s going to have work for everything he does when you have a guy like Jose on him,” the Knicks’ coach added. “Jose was good for us on both ends of the floor.”
The Knicks outscored the Celtics by 13 points in Alvarado’s 25 minutes on the floor. They will continue to lean on his production on both ends of the floor with Miles McBride expected to miss significant time — potentially the rest of the regular season — after undergoing surgery to repair a core muscle injury.
“The thing that he helps us with is his ability to play pick and roll. He gives us some different looks because he’s so quick with the ball. In the paint, you guys saw, he got in the paint and made the game easier for other players. When you have a guy that’s that quick and with that low center of gravity it’s tough,” Mike Brown said after the victory. “He was good for us offensively and defensively, he was really good, too. He’s able to match up on the ball with some of the quicker guys.”
Alvarado is taking things one game at a time.
“It was great man. We’re just getting a good flow. Obviously I’m still learning the plays, the guys, everything that’s going on,” he said. “They’re making it easy. They say be myself, so it’s just getting little rhythm. The first one is good to get out the way and keep getting better.”
Alvarado said he is happy to once again be in a winning situation. The Pelicans went 21-61 last season and boasted a 14-40 record as of Super Bowl Sunday, well out of contention for a Play-In Tournament spot, let alone the playoffs. He now finds himself playing key minutes on a Knicks team playing under a mandate from ownership to at least make, if not outright win, the NBA Finals this season.
“We had great years over there in New Orleans, but obviously this year it wasn’t the best,” he said. “So it’s always love and support for [the Pelicans], but this is obviously a contending team. So you want to win and the intensity and pay attention to detail is obviously big here.”
Josh Hart is happy to be reunited with Alvarado, who was one of his rookies for 41 games in New Orleans before a trade sent him to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2022. He said what Knicks fans see from their newest guard is what they can expect he’ll bring the rest of the way.
“I saw from the games when I was [in New Orleans]. That’s him,” said Hart. “He’s a really good on-ball defender, takes the challenge of being a great secondary ball-handler for us, being able to play-make, get into the paint, handle pressure, so what you got from Jose today is the player he is.”
