Immanuel Quickley leads comeback, Jalen Brunson’s shoulder, In-Season
Knicks point guard Immanuel Quickley checked in to Friday’s game with four minutes to go in the third. His team trailed the Heat by 18. They’d missed 10 of their first 15 shots out of halftime. They’d given up five offensive rebounds and turned it over three times.
If you thought the game was over when Quickley checked in, you certainly weren’t alone. Many in the sold-out Madison Square Garden crowd felt the same way.
But then Quickley started knocking down shots, pushing the ball and chipping away at Miami’s lead.
There were many heroes for the Knicks in their improbable comeback on Friday night. Jalen Brunson made big shots late, RJ Barrett was clutch on both ends of the floor. But the Knicks don’t have a chance to win the game without Quickley.
He scored 14 of his 20 points in the final 16 minutes. Each basket seemed to break the Heat a little more.
“Immanuel Quickley came in and really changed the game. I don’t know how much he [Quickley] had in that third and fourth quarter, but he really changed the game,” Kyle Lowry said afterward. “His aggressiveness, his assertiveness.”
Quickley was aggressive from the moment he stepped on the floor. He acknowledged after the game that the deficit surprised him. But it didn’t change his approach.
“It’s a decision to mentally check out or not. It’s a decision to keep fighting. It’s a decision to tell yourself you got to keep fighting no matter what,” he said.
Quickley had eight points in the first seven minutes of the fourth. His last basket got the Knicks within six with 5:12 to play. Brunson and RJ Barrett then combined to score New York’s last 13 points to complete the comeback.
After the remarkable win, Knick players and coach Tom Thibodeau referenced the Knicks’ resilience
“They have belief in each other. They’re fighters. And they’re not gonna go away easily,” Thibodeau said. “So sometimes it goes our way — and never know when it changes. So, they hit us pretty hard to start the third, but…
