What a game that was. Holy crap, was that something. The Knicks just put me through torture the past three hours, but they came out on top with the victory. The game had me going through every emotion. Anger, stress, confusion, but, most importantly, happiness. The Knicks needed to come out of game one with a victory. You can’t lose the first game of the series on your own court, but New Yorprevailedil.
We owe a lot of thanks to multiple players, especially the bench. The Knicks bench scored 42 of the 111 points tonight. Let’s start with Deuce McBride, who was a machine of the bench. He made his first three attempts and was a catalyst for getting the Knicks back into this game, as he was a team-high +37 while on the court. Without Deuce’s offensive help, there’s a strong chance New York does not win this game. Twenty-one points off five threes made is exactly how I thought this game would go. So let’s listen to what Jalen Brunson has to say and thank Deuce McBride.
Deuce wasn’t the only savior that came off the bench. Tonight, we saw the return of how good Mitchell Robinson can be. Isaiah Hartenstein had a lot of trouble guarding Joel Embiid tonight, and Mitch came in to play hero ball. Playing 30 minutes in meaningful basketball, Robinson had 8 points, 12 rebounds, 7 offensive, and 4 blocks, all while being a +20. We were all just reminded how good Mitchell Robinson can be. And finally, Bojan Bogdanovic showed us why we traded him at the deadline. It was not the best second half for Bojan, but he was another catalyst for the Knicks’ comeback in the first half, finishing with 13 points. The Knicks bench was terrific, but Josh Hart was out of his mind at the end of the game. Josh Hart did what he always does: slow first half, clutch second half. Josh Hart made three 3s in the game’s final minutes as he helped finish off the Sixers in game one.
This game was close because of the domination of Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. Maxey was unstoppable in the 4th quarter, scoring 9 in the 4th. He was getting to the rim with ease on almost all plays. The Knicks need to figure out what to do with him because there’s no one in the paint because of Embiid being on the perimeter. Maxey was the best player tonight because of the Embiid injury. The Sixers caught a break that Embiid was not injured on this play. Embiid doing that dunk was sick as hell, but it almost cost the 76ers their season. I thought he would never walk again the way he reacted, but he was able to return at the start of the third quarter.
It will be interesting to see how Philly deals with Embiid because one explosive play almost took out Embiid. He very luckily recovered, so what I’m allowed to say the next thing. Fuck Joel Embiid. He shoved Brunson at the end of the game for no reason and got no call, but worse, he almost destroyed Jalen Brunson’s ankle when he jumped over Brunson and barely missed his ankle. So Fuck Joel Embiid for his dirtyness. I can’t complain about the foul baiting because Brunson was doing a lot of it, too, so I will complain about his dirtyness instead.
Looking ahead, the Knicks next game is Monday night. What game one showed me is that I have even more confidence in the Knicks. Joel Embiid is nowhere near 100%. Philly will have problems dealing with his injuries, but most importantly, the Knicks played a terrible game tonight. Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo were terrible. Combined, the two shot 11/36. The Knicks won game one because of McBride, Hart, and Robinson. Brunson and Donte will get back to their usual self and lead New York to a series win!
SmallDog Sports 
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