Teams returning to the East Coast following an arduous western road trip often experience a clunker in their first game back in their home city, but both the Knicks and the Nets entered their first meeting of the season Wednesday night in that situation.
It was the Knicks who looked more rested and far sharper than their Brooklyn counterparts, coasting to a 121-102 win over the skidding Nets at Barclays Center.
Julius Randle led the way with 26 points, and Donte DiVincenzo scored 23 with five made 3-pointers for the Knicks, who had gone 2-2 in four games out west — gaining the coveted split with a gritty win Monday over LeBron James and the Lakers.
“The games keep coming, so don’t change the way you prepare,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You have to have a routine, and you stick to it. Whenever they tell you to play, you gotta be ready to go.
“I think that’s probably the biggest challenge of the league is staying ready, because you’re faced with all kinds of different things.”
Jalen Brunson finished with 16 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, while Immanuel Quickley registered 19 points and RJ Barrett added 14. Josh Hart also contributed 10 points and 13 rebounds in 31 minutes off the bench as the Knicks improved to 16-11 entering Saturday’s return home to the Garden against the Bucks.
Cam Johnson and Cam Thomas netted 20 points apiece for the Nets, who have dropped six of seven after winning only once in five games — against traded-away superstar Kevin Durant and the Suns in Phoenix — on their eight-day western jaunt. Mikal Bridges missed 17 of 21 field-goal attempts and finished with 15 points for Brooklyn (13-14).
Before the game, both coaches downplayed the idea of a local rivalry between the teams, with Nets coach Jacque Vaughn saying of his sliding team, “We’re just trying to get a win. The road trip wasn’t the way we wanted it to be, so can we get back on the winning side?”
Added Thibodeau: “People talk about it, but every night — it could be Boston, it could be Philly. They’re divisional rivals. I think proximity plays into it. Obviously, it’s two teams from the same city, so that factors in. But again, those things shouldn’t matter in terms of how you prepare for each game, in terms of how you have to be ready every night. Every game counts the same.”
The Nets missed seven of their first eight field-goal attempts, and DiVincenzo netted five points in a 10-3 game-opening spurt by the Knicks. DiVincenzo’s second 3-pointer of the quarter and a spin move inside by Barrett pushed the Knicks’ lead to 10, and a breakaway dunk by Randle made it 25-14 en route to a 12-point cushion through 12 minutes of action.
Randle finished the quarter with a dozen points, while the Nets shot just 25 percent (6-for-24) from the floor.
Vaughn’s squad found its outside touch early in the second, using two treys by Royce O’Neale, two more by Johnson and another by Spencer Dinwiddie to close within five barely five minutes into the period,
Still, Bridges clanked nine of 10 shots before halftime, and Randle’s 19 points led three Knicks in double figures for a 60-51 advantage at intermission.
The Knicks then poured in the first 11 points of the third quarter, including a dunk by Isaiah Hartenstein, a transition bucket by Barrett and another triple by DiVincenzo for a 20-point cushion, their largest of the game to that point.
The Nets chipped away, however, with Bridges burying a 3-pointer to complete a run that halved the 20-point hole to 82-72 after he’d opened the game shooting 2-for-15.
A tip-in by Nic Claxton closed the deficit to seven late in the quarter, but a scoop-shot from the baseline by Quickley on the Knicks’ final possession gave them a 90-77 lead entering the final period on their way to a 19-point victory.
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