Jalen Brunson leads Knicks to victory over Cavaliers in Game 1

CLEVELAND — It seemed like the worst-kept secret, but with 38 minutes to go before game time, the Knicks gave up the mystery Saturday and announced that Julius Randle would be in the starting lineup after sitting out more than two weeks with a sprained left ankle.

Long after his teammates took the court for warmups, he remained hidden. He finally emerged, grabbed a ball and immediately hit a short jumper.

It was the first visible sign that Randle was ready, and when the game began, it seemed at times as if he would have to carry the Knicks through a nervous first half on his wobbly ankle.

And in the end, it was Randle who rose one more time for an offensive rebound with 9.7 seconds left, giving the Knicks an extra possession and securing a 101-97 win over the Cavaliers in Game 1 of their best-of-seven first-round playoff series at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

“Yeah, it was just about winning the game at that point,” Randle said. “I don’t think [Jalen Brunson] is going to miss, but if he does, get on the glass, try to win the game.”

In a physical, ugly game that was beautiful only to a defensive-minded coach, the stars took over in the end. Donovan Mitchell carried the Cavaliers back into the game and Brunson turned the game back in the Knicks’ favor. But with the Knicks clinging to a two-point lead, it was Randle who raced from the three-point line, rebounded Brunson’s miss over Evan Mobley and kicked the ball out to Quentin Grimes, who hit two free throws with 4.3 seconds left to clinch it and give the Knicks homecourt advantage in the series.

“He’s a presence,” Brunson said of Randle, who finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds. “It may not be shooting or whatever it was — obviously he can do all that. But that offensive rebound was huge. The little things that he has committed himself to do, it’s been fantastic. It helps us. Some of the things that he does may not go on the stat sheet, but it’s big time.”

“The people that are around him, we all know you’re gonna get everything he has,” coach Tom Thibodeau said. “Julius played in 77 games until he sprained his ankle. He practiced every day. What you see in the games, what you see in practice — so you’re gonna get whatever he has. And I knew if he could go, he would go. That’s Julius. And so I thought he had a very strong start to the game. Like I said, the rebound was huge. Huge.”

Mitchell had 38 points and eight assists. Brunson matched him for the most part, scoring 27 after a foul-plagued first half, and got more than a little help from his college teammate, Josh Hart, who added 17 points, shot 8-for-11 and grabbed 10 rebounds, five on the offensive glass.

For much of the game, if you closed your eyes, you might have thought this was a throwback 1990s playoff game, based on the sound of the ball clanking off the rim or slamming off the backboard. It was the sort of slog you might expect from two defense-first teams, evenly matched in paint protection and dragging the game back decades.

The Knicks built a double-digit lead in the second quarter and never trailed in the second half until Mitchell began to get the Cavs back into the game.

With the Knicks leading by eight, Mitchell hit a three-pointer with 3:44 left and then converted a layup off a turnover. He then stole the ball from Brunson, dived on the floor, grabbed the loose ball and pushed it ahead to Cedi Osman, who pulled Cleveland within one with 2:44 left.

One possession later, the Cavs took a 93-92 lead with 2:12 remaining. But Hart answered with a three-point field goal and Brunson hit a jumper to give the Knicks a 97-93 lead. When Hart missed a contested jumper, a hustle play by Isaiah Hartenstein — who tapped the loose ball out to Brunson — allowed the Knicks to maintain possession, and Brunson’s jumper made it 99-95.

“Obviously when you’re in adverse situations, you can either crumble or band together and come out on top,” Hart said. “I feel like the latter is what we did. We didn’t get frustrated, didn’t get rattled. We know they’re a good team, and we know Donovan’s a heck of an offensive player. So we weren’t surprised. We kept the demeanor of let’s go about our business. Let’s handle our business, let’s control what we can control. That’s our attitude. And we were able to pull it out.”

“I’m going to say it’s going to be a dogfight the whole series,” Obi Toppin said. “Every game from now until the Finals, every game is going to be a dogfight. Everybody is going to do extra things to help their team. It’s just always going to be a dogfight, especially in the playoffs. We’re going to bring that dog out every game.”

By Steve Popper

steve.popper@newsday.com@StevePopper

Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.