Tag: obi toppin

Immanuel Quickley’s magic runs out, Jalen Brunson sits again

Starting point guard Jalen Brunson missed his second consecutive game Tuesday night for the Knicks with a sore left foot, but Immanuel Quickley couldn’t post another starring performance.

Quickley, who played 55 minutes and scored 38 points in Sunday’s double-overtime win in Boston, managed just 14 on 5-for-16 shooting in Tuesday’s 112-105 streak-busting loss to the Hornets at the Garden.

“Obviously we had a double-overtime game but I’ve gotta play better than that,” Quickley said. “But we’ll learn from it, I know I will. Look at the film, see how we get better and move on to the next game against [Sacramento on Thursday].

“I’m fine. Ain’t no excuse. Just got to find ways to win the game. We did it in Boston. So just gotta do it every night we can.”

Tom Thibodeau said Brunson was “much better today” but “not ready yet” to return to the lineup. He added that Brunson is expected to accompany the Knicks on their four-game western trip.


Immanuel Quickley, who scored just 14 points, drives to the basket during the Knicks’ 112-105 loss to the Hornets.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post

Asked if the $104 million point guard would be playable if Tuesday’s game was a playoff contest, Thibodeau responded, “I leave that up to the medical staff and the player. To me, I know he’ll play if he can play and if the medical people and he feels that he needs another day, then we give him the day. We love our depth. The next guy, get in there and get it done.”

Obi Toppin hit a key 3-poiner late in the fourth quarter, but he finished 1-for-4 from long distance and is mired in a 7-for-39 shooting slump from beyond the arc over his past 13 appearances.

“Just, if you’re open, shoot it,” Thibodeau said. “I think he had a great drive in the Boston game on a closeout. So just read the game, the game will tell you what to do.

“I think we’re shooting a really good percentage from three the last 10, too. I think everyone shares in that responsibility, it’s not necessarily one guy.”

LaMelo Ball (ankle) and Cody Martin (knee) were out for the Hornets.

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Knicks’ second unit is finally healthy finding its rhythm

Two games after Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau went to his new second unit in early December, Obi Toppin suffered a non-displaced fracture in his right fibula. When he returned a month later, RJ Barrett, a starter who almost always plays with the reserves, was out with a lacerated right index finger. 

Finally, Thibodeau’s second-unit quintet of Toppin, Barrett, Isaiah Hartenstein, Miles McBride and Immanuel Quickley are healthy at the same time, and there are signs they can be productive for the Knicks. 

On Tuesday night, that unit helped the Knicks build an 11-point, second-quarter lead, then keyed a strong fourth quarter as part of a 27-point performance. Two nights earlier, the group was pivotal in the Knicks overcoming an early 17-point deficit, although it also struggled in the fourth quarter of that loss to the Raptors. Quickley, however, didn’t play in that game. 

“Huge. I mentioned it earlier that the bench was playing really well prior to RJ getting hurt, then Obi got hurt and we haven’t found our rhythm,” Thibodeau said. “Now I think we’re starting to find that rhythm again.” 


Obi Toppin #1, Immanuel Quickley #5 and Miles McBride #2 of the New York Knicks huddle in action against the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden on March 28, 2022 in New York City.
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Isaiah Hartenstein #55 of the New York Knicks celebrates after scoring against the Washington Wizards in the second half at Capital One Arena on January 13, 2023 in Washington, DC.
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The overall numbers of the five aren’t great, although it is a very small sample size. In 53 minutes together they have a minus-6.2 NET rating. Their offensive rating is an even 100, a poor figure, while their defensive rating of 106.2 is solid. 

But there has been much shuffling because of the injuries to Toppin and Barrett, Quickley missing a game with a sore left knee and Hartenstein being slowed by an Achilles injury. They showed what they can do against the Cavaliers, one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. 

Toppin scored in double figures for the second straight game, producing 11 points. Quickley continued his ascension as a quality all-around player, notching nine points, six assists, five rebounds and a team-best, plus-14 rating. McBride was aggressive and made quick decisions, dishing out three assists along with his typical quality defense. Then there was Hartenstein, who enjoyed one of his best games as a Knick with nine rebounds, four assists and a block. That included the game-saving stop at the rim of Donovan Mitchell in the final seconds. 

“When they come in and they push the lead like that, it’s tough [or the opposition], because it allows us obviously to get rest, but it just brings a certain momentum and confidence to our team when they play like that,” Julius Randle said. 

Consistency is clearly the key, but so is health. They just haven’t shared the floor enough to develop cohesion. The Knicks need them to be productive, to lighten the load on co-stars Randle and Jalen Brunson. Quickley, averaging career-highs in points (12.4), rebounds (4.0), field goal percentage (42.9) and minutes (27.4), has been a constant. Toppin finding his form of a year ago would be a major boost. Though his 3-point shooting has improved, up to a career-best 37 percent, his other numbers are all down. Lately, though, he has begun to find his game, perhaps as he has shaken off the rust from all that time on the sideline with his leg injury. 


R.J. Barrett #9 of the New York Knicks looks up the court against the Toronto Raptors during the first half of their basketball game at the Scotiabank Arena on January 22, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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“I loved his aggressiveness,” Thibodeau said. “He’s mixing it up, he’s not settling. It’s some drives to the basket, it’s running the floor, it’s shooting the open 3.” 

Overall, the bench is 26th in the league in scoring, but it does have strong advanced numbers: sixth in offensive rating (114.9) and ninth in NET rating (plus-1.8). As the Knicks try to stay afloat amid a difficult schedule while defensive anchor Mitchell Robinson is out for the next month with a fractured right thumb, they will need their bench to make a positive impact on a consistent basis. 

Their latest showing was a step forward in that direction. 

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Jalen Brunson wears Jalen Hurts jersey before Knicks’ loss

Knicks guard Jalen Brunson is one of the top current athletes on the New York scene, but he won’t be rooting for the New York Giants on Saturday night.

Brunson was seen wearing a jersey of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts before the Knicks’ ugly 116-105 loss to the Wizards on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.

The 26-year-old Brunson, a New Brunswick native, is a big Eagles fan from growing up in southern New Jersey. Brunson has other Philadelphia ties when he was a key member of Villanova’s 2018 national championship team.

“I’m sure Twitter is probably going crazy,” said Brunson, who scored a game-high 32 points in the loss. “It is what it is.”

On Monday, Obi Toppin, a New Yorker, was predicting a Giants win, telling every reporter that walked into the locker room they would “whoop the Eagles ass.”

Brunson, on the other hand, has so far declined to offer a prediction on the showdown.

The visiting Giants are a 7.5-point underdog in Saturday’s NFC divisional clash which begins at 8:15 p.m. on Fox.

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This is the fight the superstar-less Knicks need to show

PHILADELPHIA — Even though mediocre teams are never supposed to win on the road against superior opponents, the Knicks had absolutely no choice but to win Friday. They were not exactly facing the Julius Erving-Moses Malone 76ers. 

In fact, they weren’t even facing the Joel Embiid-James Harden 76ers. With Philadelphia’s two franchise players out, and with the deep, rough-and-tumble Eastern Conference offering no free passes, the Knicks needed to prove to themselves — and to everyone else — that they could at least sink a five-foot uphill putt after it had been practically conceded. 

They did not hit that putt dead center. No, it did a 360 spin around the cup before falling at last, leaving the visitors at Wells Fargo Center looking more relieved than joyful at the final horn Friday night. 

No surprise there. As a rule, nothing will come easily to this middling group. These are the Knicks after all, and after seven games the best thing that could be said about them is that they aren’t the Nets, and that maybe it isn’t such a horrible thing in the end that they failed to sign Kyrie Irving (with Kevin Durant) in the summer of 2019. 

(The Knicks offered an apology to their fan base after that failure. Yes, that can be retracted now.) 

But this eighth game, a 106-104 victory over Philly, might’ve done a lot more than get the Knicks back to .500. They were down 12 points early in the fourth quarter, and they didn’t have a clue how to cover Tyrese Maxey, the emerging star who scored 27 points in the first 36 minutes. While watching Immanuel Quickley’s college teammate repeatedly blow by a parade of overmatched defenders, it was hard not to think that the Knicks ended up with the wrong Kentucky guard in the 2020 draft. 

The Knicks dug into a needed identity against the 76ers.
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What else is new, right? This was looking like another night to whine in print about the Knicks’ lack of a true superstar, their inability to trade for Donovan Mitchell or Dejounte Murray, and the fact that Mitchell, Murray, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Ja Morant — the four men most responsible for the Knicks’ four early defeats — had combined for 138 points and 39 assists in those games, delivering performances that you won’t be seeing on Tom Thibodeau’s side of the box score. 

Only it didn’t play out like that. Thibodeau’s decision to start Quentin Grimes turned out to be a non-factor as Grimes scored two points and was minus-20 in 15 minutes. The Knicks committed 13 turnovers before 14 minutes of basketball had been played, they squandered a five-point halftime lead with a dreadful third quarter after Mitchell Robinson left the game with a bum knee, but then they overcame it all. 

“We fought,” RJ Barrett said. “It was beautiful to see.” 

Yes, an ugly game can indeed be a beautiful thing. Obi Toppin was making plays all over the floor — and making a persuasive case for the Toppin-Julius Randle pairing that keeps Thibs up at night — while Jalen Brunson was giving some locals in the crowd a reminder of what he did for Villanova, slicing down the lane for a basket, a drawn foul, and a three-point play with 1:05 left that was one of the biggest sequences of the night. 

Asked beforehand what Brunson has brought to his new team, Sixers coach Doc Rivers said: “Leadership. Toughness. Big shot maker. Winner. Other than that … [laughter]. No, really, I think all those things are what he’s good at. I don’t think you look at him and see one thing that stands out, other than all the intangibles that make him a really good player.” 

Jalen Brunson dribbles during the Knicks’ win over the 76ers.
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Brunson led the Knicks with 23 points and seven assists against only one turnover. He is not much to look at athletically, but he is too smart and efficient with the ball for that to matter. 

“We were very resilient,” Brunson said. “We’ve had a lot of opportunities in other games. We’ve been up and we’ve been down and we came up short the last couple of those. But we finally did enough to win.” 

That was the best part of the whole thing. Even with the addition of Brunson, the Knicks don’t have a lot of talent. They have a number of good players, but no great ones. If they want any shot of making the real playoffs, and staying out of the play-in tournament, they need to show consistent competitive heart from here until springtime. 

“To me, you need that in everything in life,” said Barrett, who scored 22 points. “You’ve got to compete in everything to just try to do the best. We’ll definitely need that throughout the season.” 

The Knicks don’t have an anchor. They don’t have a face of the franchise, and their hope that Barrett will grow into one is a 50-50 proposition at best. 

They have to do all of the little things to compensate for the dearth of big names capable of doing the big things. 

Thibodeau put it this way: “We’re asking everyone to sacrifice and put the team first. If we do that, we have a chance.” 

The Knicks fought for their chance to win on Friday night. They’d better keep their boxing gloves laced tightly for the next five months. 

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Tom Thibodeau won’t reel in Obi Toppin’s flashy dunking ‘gift’

Obi Toppin joked Monday that he doesn’t look at head coach Tom Thibodeau on the Knicks’ bench after executing a flashy dunk during games, such as his between-the-legs slam that invigorated the Garden during the preseason win over the Pacers on Friday. 

“I’ve trained myself not to look at Thibs anymore. Because every time I look at Thibs, I get in my head,” Toppin said after practice in Tarrytown. “So I just get back on defense, and pray, and [be] happy it went in.” 

Toppin smiled broadly, but said he hasn’t decided yet whether he will defend his Slam Dunk title at the 2022-23 All-Star weekend in Salt Lake City in February. 

“I just want the two points. But the thing is, he’s a great finisher. I want him to be himself,” Thibodeau said. “He plays with emotion. The value of a dunk is pretty high when you look at the point value. 

Obi Toppin dunks during the Knicks’ preseason win over the Pacers.
Noah K. Murray-NY Post
Tom Thibodeau does not want to take away Obi Toppin’s gift.
Robert Sabo for the NY POST

“So, I think the more he dunks, the better. I’m not for all the crazy stuff, but he’s gifted, and I don’t want to take his gift away from him.” 

The 24-year-old Toppin listed his favorite dunkers of all-time as Vince Carter, Zach LaVine, Aaron Gordon, Gerald Green and his father, longtime New York streetball legend Obadiah Toppin Sr., whose nickname was Dunker’s Delight. 

Toppin said his dad can still dunk, but joked that he’d beat his father in a contest because “he can’t do all the crazy things he used to.” 

Toppin also connected on 4 of 7 attempts from 3-point range in the win over the Pacers and finished with a team-high 24 points. 

Thibodeau rested Evan Fournier on Friday, and he gave Julius Randle the day off from practice Sunday at Columbia. The coach said he’s unsure if any veterans will sit out the game Wednesday at Indiana or the preseason final Friday at the Garden against the Wizards. 

Toppin, a Brooklyn native who attended Ossining High School in Westchester County, said he’s a fan of the Yankees, who will open the ALDS against the Guardians on Tuesday. He also threw out a ceremonial first pitch at Citi Field before a Mets game in August. 

“We’re going to get on that Yankee field one day. It’s all right. We got to,” Toppin said, before he was asked about AL home-run record holder Aaron Judge. “He’s amazing. … He’s a great role model. Congrats to him and everything that’s coming his way.”

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