Jose Alvarado brought the ball up the floor, threw an entry pass to Karl-Anthony Towns, then cut off Towns’ right shoulder to the rim. Towns found Alvarado wide-open for what could have been an easy two.
But what followed was a blur of reads and reversals that never let the ball stick. Towns hit Alvarado on a back cut. Alvarado drew the defense, passed up a layup and kicked it out to Mohamed Diawara. Diawara swung it to Mikal Bridges. Bridges swung it one more time, back to the architect of the possession. Alvarado — relocated, feet set — buried his fifth three of the night barely a minute into the fourth quarter of the Knicks’ 138-89 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.
It didn’t stop there.
Alvarado coughed the ball up on a drive moments later, only to hustle back, strip Sixers center Adem Bona and relocate to the corner. The ball found him again. Splash. Triple No. 6.
“It’s crazy. I’m just getting in rhythm with the system the plays and coaching staff,” Alvarado said after the game. “But they’re doing a great job making it super easy and today it went my way. Shots went in.”
The sequence was chaotic yet connected. And it was a snapshot of everything that works when these Knicks are at their best.
Because when the Knicks move the ball and turn defense into offense — when they trust the pass more than the dribble — they look like the NBA Cup champions they are. Alvarado’s coming-out party at Wells Fargo Center embodied every reason the front office targeted him at the deadline.
The Brooklyn Boy is back home where he belongs.
The Knicks outscored the 76ers by 35 points in Alvarado’s 19 minutes on the floor. He finished with 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field to go with five steals on the night.
“I always thought I was a great shooter, a good shooter. Obviously it’s getting better,” he said in his walk-off interview. “I’m gonna keep getting better and knock shots down.”
New York bounced back from its 137-134 overtime loss to the 14-win Indiana Pacers on Tuesday with a resounding 49-point victory in Philadelphia over the 76ers on Wednesday.
The Sixers were without All-Star center Joel Embiid (right knee management) and starting wing Paul George (25-game suspension), and the Knicks pounded the paint against Philadelphia’s backup bigs.
Bridges finished with 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field after erupting for 12 points in the opening period. Towns added 21 points, 11 rebounds and five assists on 8-of-13 shooting from the field, and Josh Hart flirted with a triple double (six points, seven rebounds, nine assists) in 29 minutes of action.
The Knicks got 72 points from their bench on Wednesday.
“We knew this was a big game for us in the standings so we just had to come back,” said Alvarado. “The game yesterday didn’t go our way, but we had to be us come back and get a win today.”
The Knicks scored 72 points in the first half and put up 104 points by the end of the third quarter. The performance marked their 15th 70-point half of the season.
Tyrese Maxey scored 32 points on 9-of-21 shooting from the field, but no other Sixers player scored more than VJ Edgecombe, who needed 16 shots to get 14 points and missed all five of his attempts from downtown on Wednesday.
After allowing the Pacers to make 16 threes through the first three quarters of their loss on Tuesday, the Knicks held the 76ers to just 6-of-32 shooting from downtown.
Jalen Brunson finished with just eight points on three-of-six shooting from the field to go with four assists but was plus-21 in 30 minutes on the floor. The rookie Diawara logged 14 points, five rebounds and two assists on 4-of-8 shooting from deep off the bench. Mitchell Robinson, who sat the front leg of the home-road back-to-back against the Pacers on Tuesday, turned the game with four blocks in 15 minutes.
The bounce-back victory evened the scale entering the 2026 NBA All-Star break after the Knicks lost two of their last three games, including a 37-point shellacking in Detroit against the top-seeded Pistons.
The Knicks enter the break winners of 11 of their last 13 games.
They will face the top-seeded Pistons once again coming out of All-Star 2026 followed by a date with Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets immediately after.
