Knicks Bulletin: ‘Before you say something, you probably should think’

New York barely got past the Sixers in overtime as people got tired.

The Knicks dodged a serious bullet on Wednesday as they led by 16 points but found themselves going to overtime before beating a depleted Sixers team, final score of 125-119.

New York flew to Philly for one of the few road games the Knicks will play this month and struggled mightily to stop the 76ers after the halftime break in a matchup that didn’t feature the best player on each team—Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid.

Here’s what Coach Thibs and a few Knickerbockers had to say before and yesterday’s affair.

Tom Thibodeau

On Hart’s triple-double performance on Wednesday:

“What can you say about Josh? He willed that game at the end. The hustle plays, they saved the game for us.”

On Achiuwa’s impact against the Sixers:

“[Achiuwa’s] blocks were huge. Huge. He gives you a little more switchability, and his reaction to the ball was big time.”

On navigating player injuries and trusting his top-heavy rotation:

“It’s the NBA, no one at this time of year, no one is 100 percent.

“I appreciate our guys. I know they’re playing with soreness, they’re playing with minor injuries, and that’s what I love about them, all of them. From KAT to Jalen to OG to Mikal to Josh, they come in every day and put a lot into it. I’ve got great respect for them.”

On adapting the lineup to make up for Karl-Anthony Towns’ absence:

“Every player is different. This is the league we’re in and night to night there’s a lot of changes. You go into a game and you’re planning on, ‘OK, they’ve had these guys playing the last four or five games,’ and all of the sudden their lineup’s completely different. So now you have to change.

“You’re also dealing with your own team. Injuries happen. Guys get sick. That’s all part of it. And how quickly can you adapt? That’s the challenge we all face.”

On Josh Hart’s comments about the Knicks having to drop their egos

“I really don’t read what you guys write. But there’s a lot of challenges throughout the course of the season, and just stay focused on the daily improvement. Sometimes there’s going to be some frustration.

“I think oftentimes the next day after you look at the film, you’re putting a mic in front of someone right after a game. And sometimes they may say things, we all may say things that we wish we had not said until you watch the film the next day. And then there’s usually a pretty good reason why something occurred.

“So before you say something, you probably should think.”

On the Knicks’ first half of the season:

“There’s a lot of challenges throughout the course of the season, so there’s ups and downs, and you have to handle that.

“You’ve got to get through things together, but you never can lose sight of how important it is to improve every day, and then hopefully at the end you’re playing your best basketball. There’s still a lot of things that we can do better that we have to lock into.”

Jalen Brunson

On the Knicks’ team mindset with KAT out:

“It’s always the next-man-up mentality. Regardless of who is out. And for the most part we’re always ready to go… and we have the utmost confidence of everybody in this locker room.”

On his late turnover against the Sixers:

“That’s on me. That’s just careless and I got to know my surroundings and not put my team in that position.

“But I’m happy we stayed together and came out with the win.

“That’s a position we should not have been in. But we turned the page and were ready to go.”

On Josh Hart’s performance:

“This guy’s a clown, dawg. [But] he’s been doing this (contribute to winning) ever since I met him.

“He just finds a way every single night. It pains me to compliment him but it’s what he does.”

On KAT changing his Eagles sweater:

“If it was me, I would have kept it on.”

Josh Hart

On stepping up in Towns’ absence:

“I just knew there’s no one to steal my rebounds.

“But nah, obviously he’s averaging like 13 rebounds, something like that, so you know you’ve got to hit the glass a little bit harder. That’s the only thing that goes through my mind.”

On beating the Sixers after letting them pull of a 16-point comeback:

“We were kind of on our heels. Got to give them credit. They came with great energy in that second half, knocking down shots, playing fast, getting stops.

“So the biggest thing is try to find ways to gain momentum. That’s kind of all that’s going through my mind at that time.”

On the overtime win on Wednesday:

“It took a little bit of everything. We’ve been trying to find it these last couple games.

“We’ve just gotta go out there and compete. I feel like we did that. Go win the game. That’s the biggest thing.

“We can’t change anything that happened in the past. We’ve got five minutes to go win this thing.”

On his role in impacting games outside of scoring:

“Just find a way to impact the game. I think that’s the biggest thing for me.

“I’m not someone that gets plays called [for me]. I’m not needed to go out there and score 20, 25 points a game. So I’ve got to find ways to impact the game and my way is rebounding.

“I need to be better defensively. Just making some of those energy plays.”

Karl-Anthony Towns

On the Knicks’ 26–15 record at the halfway point:

“Obviously, there’s a lot we wish we could have done, games we could take back, ways we could have executed in different ways late in games.

“But to be in the spot we’re in, the team we are, I think we’re going in the right direction. Just got to continue to grow and then keep working on being the best version of ourselves when we need to be.”

On changing the Eagles sweater for a Knicks shirt midway through Wednesday’s game:

“Aye. Sweat stains ain’t it on ESPN. Had to pull another fit out! Anyways… GO BIRDS.”

Tyrese Maxey (Philadelphia 76ers Player)

On Josh Hart’s game-changing impact:

“He impacts the game, man, it’s crazy.

“I had no clue he had a triple-double—17 rebounds—nobody else on their team had double digits.

“You get the ball out of Brunson’s hand and if it’s him he’s gonna make the right play every single time almost.”

Nick Nurse (Philadelphia 76ers Head Coach)

On the Sixers’ overtime woes against the Knicks:

“I mean, didn’t get off to a great start. They were getting ready to tip that opening ball out of bounds, and it’d have been our ball to start.

“Obviously they scored right away, and then we turn over the next possession, Brunson hits a three, and there’s 5-0 right away.

“So again, just two possessions to zero. So that wasn’t a great start. Then Brunson got fouled on the next one for three, so…”