Julius Randle picks up his game to lead Knicks over Lakers
Knicks forward Julius Randle (30) drives to the basket at Los Angeles Lakers forward Troy Brown Jr. (7) defends during the first half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 12, 2023, in Los Angeles. Credit: Marcio Jose Sanchez
LOS ANGELES — There were no tantrums this time.
Julius Randle took out any frustrations he may have had — and there have been many in his returns to the place where his professional career began — by scoring 33 points to help the Knicks to a much-needed 112-108 win over the Lakers on Sunday night at crypto.com Arena.
The win snapped a three-game losing streak and kept the Knicks (40-30) percentage points behind the Nets (39-29) in the battle for the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race. And it came little more than 24 hours after the Knicks and Randle had melted down on the same court.
A day earlier, Randle found himself being bear-hugged by coach Tom Thibodeau and shouting at teammates and team security personnel as he boiled over in anger and frustration as the Knicks lost to the Clippers.
Randle shot 5-for-24 Saturday and had to be restrained from confronting the officials. It was just another sign of how difficult life has been for the Knicks without Jalen Brunson, who was on the bench in a walking boot Sunday, sitting out his fourth game in the last five (and playing only one half in Thursday night’s game in Sacramento before giving in to the pain).
“Look, players are going to go through things,” Thibodeau said before the game. “No one’s perfect. But bounce back today. So I think overall, he’s done a good job this year. And just yesterday is gone. That has nothing to do with today. Be ready for today. So you start at zero today.”
Randle hit his first shot of the night, and after misfiring on his next three, he began to catch fire, as he so often does in the first quarter. He finished the period with 18 points — setting a franchise record for most first-quarter points in a single season with 644, topping Carmelo Anthony’s 628 in 2013-14 (Randle is averaging 9.2 points in first quarters).
“Obviously, after shooting the ball the way I did yesterday, I wanted to be a little bit more in attack mode, be aggressive going to the basket,” he said.
“My mental’s sharp,” he added. “Games like that happen. I work on my craft, I know what I put into my craft. I’m not gonna second-guess myself just because I had a bad game. Come back next game, be better.”
“And that’s why I think you gotta be careful when you make judgments based on one game,” Thibodeau said. “Like, he’s got, 70 games into the season. So sometimes we’re quick to judge and you’re not looking at it in totality . . . So someone can miss shots. That’s part of the game. Don’t let it take away from anything else. Hey, look. We’re all human. Anyone can have a bad day. If you have a bad day, the next day, you got to bounce back and have a great day. I thought he did that and I thought it was great.”
RJ Barrett scored 30 points and Josh Hart hit two free throws with five seconds left to give the Knicks a four-point lead. D’Angelo Russell had 33 points for the Lakers.
Barrett’s layup gave the Knicks a 110-100 lead with 2:34 left, but the Lakers closed to within four on Anthony Davis’ dunk with 46.3 seconds to play.
Dennis Schroder drove the length of the court to cut it to two with 19.3 seconds left, but the Knicks broke the Lakers’ press and played keepaway until Hart was fouled with five seconds left. He sandwiched his two free throws around a Lakers timeout to put the game away, finishing what Randle had started.
Thibodeau said of Randle: “So you try to build the right habits. You have to be mentally tough to get through things. Sometimes it’s not easy. Sometimes things aren’t going your way. And then how do you make them go your way? So I think the more you invest in something, the harder it is to surrender and the more you fight and you get through things. I think being mentally tough through adversity is probably the most important thing there is.”
Notes & quotes: Thibodeau gave little clarity on Brunson’s status moving forward. Asked if he will hold him out Tuesday in Portland on the final stop of the road trip — the Knicks have three days off after that game — he said the point guard is day-to-day. “He’ll just continue to do his treatments and we’ll see where he is,’’ Thibodeau said. “When he’s ready to go, he’s ready to go.”
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.
