Tom Thibodeau drew up the play.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart executed it perfectly.
The result was a Bridges walk-off game-winner, created by a stiff Hart screen, to propel the Knicks to a 114-113 overtime victory on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers late Wednesday night.
“Just the time and score. We like that play because there’s multiple options to read on, and so if they’re switching on everything, there’s an easy opportunity there,” Thibodeau explained after the win, New York’s second to split the first four in a five-game West Coast road trip. “And then we knew they were playing their fives on Josh, so we knew we could get something good off that.”
Trailing 113-111 after Portland’s Deni Avdija made a pair of free throws with less than five seconds left in overtime, the Knicks found themselves in unfamiliar territory.
In need of a clutch basket with Jalen Brunson sidelined due to right ankle injury.
On an out of bounds play with the game on the line, Bridges inbounded the ball to Hart, who immediately gave the ball back and screened his man.
“I saw [Trail Blazers rookie center Donovan Clingan] kind of off me and kind of in a drop,” Hart recalled. “I just told ‘Kal make sure you ball fake, and I’m gonna get open and get you the ball.
“And he did what he did. I think everything there was just focus and poise.”
As Thibodeau anticipated, the Trail Blazers switched the screen, leaving Clingan two steps behind as Bridges dribbled over and pulled up from the top of the key for the buzzer-beating shot.
The star Knicks forward said he knew the shot was going in as he watched it on the way from his hands towards the rim.
“Yeah it looked good,” Bridges said in his walk-off interview at the Moda Center. “Sometimes when I fade a little bit, [the ball] might go a little bit left or right, but as I kept falling to the left, it looked like it was staying straight.
“[My mindset was] just win a game. Find the right read. KAT [Karl-Anthony Towns] was open. Deuce [Miles McBride]. Somebody. We’ve got playmakers and everybody’s gonna be ready to make a play.”
The Knicks have now improved to a 2-1 record in games Brunson has missed due to his ankle injury. They blew out the Sacramento Kings, 133-104, on Monday, then answered the bell in crunch time in Portland on Thursday.
This time, it wasn’t the captain who saved the day.
“Just staying together,” Bridges said. “You know JB is out, and that’s our brother, and we love him, and we’re gonna hold it down until he gets back. But just togetherness, man. Fighting. A lot of miscues happening. A lot of things messing up, but we’re gonna fight until the clock hits zero.”
Bridges finished with a game-high 33 points on 13-of-21 shooting from the field and 2-of-4 shooting from downtown.
His performance marked the most points he’s scored as a Knick this season since his 41-point explosion against the San Antonio Spurs on Christmas Day.
“Huge. Huge. Just timely shots all down the stretch,” Thibodeau said of Bridges. “Big shots. Obviously, the game winner, huge.”
Bridges’ barrage also came on the heels of his critical comments regarding Thibodeau’s minutes distribution.
The Knicks star, who leads the NBA in total minutes played this season, said after morning shootaround in Portland he spoke to his head coach about playing the bench more minutes in an effort to save New York’s starters from wearing down.
Mikal Bridges tells Tom Thibodeau to play Knicks starters fewer minutes: report
Thibodeau denied a conversation with Bridges regarding minutes distribution took place during his pregame press conference at the Moda Center on Thursday.
“The facts are the facts: Your wings play more. So they’re matched up with primary scorers,” Thibodeau said. “So the way it works is if Jayson Tatum is in the game and Jaylen Brown is in the game, OG will be in the game and Mikal will be in the game.”
“Try to keep the matchups. When you look at the league, all those guys are playing 35, 36 minutes — whether it’s [Kevin] Durant, Tatum or a Brown. A wing is going to play more. They’re primary wing defenders. That’s the way the league works.”
Hart labeled Bridges’ comments on minutes as “background noise.”
“We know ‘Kal. We know where his heart is. So that’s all background noise,” he told reporters in Portland. “We’re all locked into doing what we’ve gotta do down the stretch and win games.”
On Thursday, Bridges, who averages just under 38 minutes per game, ended with 41 minutes after playing the entire overtime period.
The Knicks needed every second to outlast the Trail Blazers on the road.
OG Anunoby posted his fifth 20-plus-point game in his last six outings with 23 points on 8-of-20 shooting from the field. Towns added 21 points on just 12 shot attempts but hit a pair of threes to give the Knicks a lead in the fourth quarter, and Hart (11 points, 11 rebounds, nine assists) came one assist shy of his eighth triple-double of the season.
“KAT, those two big threes to give us the lead. A lot of guys: OG, his all-around play. He’s been on a roll on both sides of the ball. His scoring, his defense is through the roof. His hustle plays,” Thibodeau said. “Josh — he didn’t make shots, but he did so many other things that helped us win.”
The Knicks, however, gave up 27 points and 15 rebounds to Avdija, and former No. 3-overall pick Scoot Henderson came off the Trail Blazer bench to score 30 points on 10-of-16 shooting from the field.
New York, though, continued to use its newfound abilities to turn defense into offense with the irritating McBride starting in place of Brunson.
The Knicks turned the Trail Blazers over 25 times and scored 31 points off of those takeaways. McBride shot just 4-of-12 from the field for 11 points but registered four steals and two blocks in the victory Thursday night.
The defensive effort helped New York sustain a 17-of-42 three-point shooting night from Portland on the road.
“Obviously our defense is propelling us right now,” said Thibodeau. “We forced 25 turnovers for 31 points. We needed every one of them.”
The Knicks have now split their West Coast road trip at two games apiece leading into their finale in San Francisco against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday.
A 2-2 record through the first four games is a favorable result given Brunson’s injury in overtime of the first stop, a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
