Knicks pick up where they left off, roll past 76ers with another blowout Game 1
The Knicks didn’t leave that first-round fire back in Atlanta. They hauled it straight home to Madison Square Garden and turned Game 1 into a message. Four days after a historic Game 6 performance against the Atlanta Hawks, the Knicks carried that same edge into the Eastern Conference semifinals and hammered the Philadelphia 76ers 137-98 Monday night to take a 1-0 series lead.
Game 2 is on Wednesday in Manhattan Jalen Brunson finished with a game-high 35 points on 12-for-18 shooting. OG Anunoby added 18 points and three rebounds, while Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges scored 17 points apiece as it took the Knicks’ starters only three quarters to put this one away. All five 76ers starters finished in double figures, led by Paul George, who had 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting in 26 minutes.
Philadelphia’s opening idea was obvious, and for a few minutes, it looked dangerous. The 76ers ran almost everything through Joel Embiid, not just to score, but to drag the Knicks’ frontcourt into foul trouble before the game had found any rhythm. Embiid drew fouls on Anunoby and Towns in the first two minutes, then got Towns for a second.
Mitchell Robinson came in and picked up trouble too. For a stretch, the Knicks had three different frontcourt pieces playing cautiously. The Knicks started with Towns on Embiid and Bridges on Tyrese Maxey, and they were willing to switch the Maxey-Embiid pick-and-roll.
That kept Maxey quiet early and forced the 76ers to live almost entirely through Embiid’s whistle and touch game. Maxey didn’t make a field goal in the first quarter. Brunson, meanwhile, took the game somewhere else entirely.