Immanuel Quickley scored 24 points, Quentin Grimes added 23 and the Knicks are closer to a playoff berth with a 101-92 victory Wednesday night over the Miami Heat.
The Knicks overcame the loss of All-Star forward Julius Randle, they won their second straight and remained firmly in fifth place in the Eastern Conference.
The Heat are now much closer to securing play-in tournament status and that’s not a good thing, while riding a three-game losing streak despite All-Star forward Jimmy Butler, returning to the starting lineup on Wednesday.
Knicks Head Coach Tom Thibodeau, would stick with the same five players, three of them coming from his bench, for the entirety of the fourth quarter in a key victory over Miami.
Those guys might need to keep producing in clutch time if New York will have to play for an extended period of time without their leader in Julius Randle.
Randle sprained his left ankle late in the second quarter when Bam Adebayo landed on him after Randle had grabbed an offensive rebound and faked the Heat’s center in the air. Randle remained in the game to shoot the free throws, but was clearly in pain and the Knicks quickly fouled Miami to check him out of the game.
Josh Hart would also add 13 points for the Knicks, and they are now two and a half games ahead of the Brooklyn Nets in addition to creating a four-game gap over the seventh-place Heat, in the Eastern Conference playoff race.
They would pull off the win with reserves in Quickley, Hart and Isaiah Hartenstein going all 12 minutes, along with Grimes and RJ Barrett.
“The way they were playing was incredible and they just found a way to keep fighting, and everything they were doing on both sides of the ball, they were clicking, so you’ve just got to go with that,” Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson said.
Brunson scored 12 points, and RJ Barrett also netted 12. New York visits the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night, in what could be the preview of the fourth and fifth-seed matchup in the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Brunson returned to New York’s starting lineup after a two-game absence with a sprained right hand. Now the Knicks will wait to see about Randle, who will be evaluated on Thursday. The All-Star forward has not missed a single game during the 2022-2023 NBA season.
“I thought our bench was terrific, so next guy get in there, next man up, get it done and that’s the way we have to approach it,” Thibodeau said.
The top six teams in each conference are guaranteed playoff spots. The Heat’s third straight loss dropped them to one and a half games behind the Nets, who reclaimed the sixth-seed over the Heat on Saturday.
“Losing is what got us here, none of us feel good about it. This is where we are. You are what your record is. You are what has happened recently. But things can change quickly. … The only solutions we have right now are in that locker room. We have the competitive character,” Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said.
Gabe Vincent scored 21 points and Tyler Herro had 16 for the Heat, who faded down the stretch of the final quarter after losing in Toronto on Tuesday. The first-seed in last year’s East playoffs are searching for answers why they might not even get in this time.
“We didn’t win games. At the end of the day, that’s what it is, I don’t know why we didn’t win. Probably because the opposing team scored more points than we did. That’s literally what happened,” Jimmy Butler said.
The Knicks led 86-85 midway through the fourth quarter before Hart made a pair of shots and Grimes added four points in a 9-0 burst that would extend New York’s lead 95-85 on Quickley’s free throw with 4:17 remaining. The Heat never made another run and ultimately lost.
Miami led 23-19 after a first quarter in which New York went 0-for-6 on free throws. Brunson made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give New York a 48-46 lead heading into halftime.
Kyle Lowry sat out the second half of the back-to-back after playing Tuesday against his former team in the Toronto Raptors. … Butler returned to the lineup on Wednesday after not playing Tuesday and had 12 points of his own.
The Miami Heat will host the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday and the last five games of the season for Miami, they are as crucial as ever.
