Julius Randle's 42 points lead Knicks to another road win

DETROIT — The Knicks certainly were not shooting the lights out  late in Sunday's game as they saw  an 18-point fourth-quarter lead whittled to seven, but a clock glitch caused a prolonged stoppage of play. The clocks were shut down, replaced by spares on the corner of the court.

Julius Randle still seemed at ease, knowing it was time, wherever the clock was, for a big shot. He sank a three-pointer and then a tough shot in the lane, putting the finishing touches on a season-high 42 points to lead the Knicks to a 117-104 win over the Detroit Pistons.

“Thankfully our bench was yelling green, green, so I knew I didn’t have much time,” Randle said. “Obviously, I knew the shot clock had to be down, but where it was positioned and angled, I couldn’t really see it, so I had to get to what I was doing really quickly."

Randle’s 42 points and 15 rebounds — one board shy of his fourth consecutive 16-rebound game — put him in lofty historical territory. He's the first Knicks player with a 40-point, 15-rebound game since Patrick Ewing did it at Seattle on Jan. 19, 1996.

"Man, he’s a legend,” said Randle, who has 16 double-doubles in the last 17 games. “Respect to him. Just lets you know the kind of work that he put In when he wore his jersey. I’m honored and blessed to be able to do something that he did.”

It wasn’t his only brush with history on this day. Randle's  first basket of the second quarter, a three-point field goal with 6:07 left in the half, lifted him above Bernard King for 25th place on the Knicks' all-time scoring list with 5,449 points.

“Yeah, obviously I wore the jersey [number 30] for my mom [a former college player], but he’s a legend as well,” Randle said of King. “Any time I see him, I give him great appreciation, thankful. Those are pioneers for this game. We wouldn’t be able to play the game the way we do without him. I’m glad I can follow in his footsteps.”

Tom Thibodeau was more interested in this game than any historical look back, and what he saw from Randle was giving the Knicks what they needed.

“Just great. And it wasn’t just the scoring, all-around, everything, and I loved how we started the game,” Thibodeau said. “I thought he set the tone for us. Watching them [the Pistons] play, getting ready to play, I knew how well they had been playing, and sometimes that's hard to get across. But I thought Julius helped set the tone for being ready. And I think getting that lead early, we needed all of it, being ready to play.

“And then whenever we needed a big bucket, he stepped up and delivered. But his defense, so many things, the rebounding is just huge. And he got every big, big rebound down the stretch and he had some tough covers. He's all over the place. He's on the perimeter guarding guards and everything else. So I thought he was terrific.”

“He played great,” said Jalen Brunson, who added 27 points and took three charges, raising his season total to 16, tied for most in the NBA. “He played how Julius plays and he was aggressive on both sides of the ball. He was just focused. He's been focused for a long time, and he's taken it up a notch and I think for him, we just keep following his lead. He’s doing a great job.””

 It was the  seventh victory in the last eight games and 15th in the last 21 games for the Knicks (25-19). It also was their 10th road win in their last 12 games, putting them in a tie with the Nets for the second-most road wins (14), one behind Boston for the NBA lead.

Detroit, with the worst record in the Eastern Conference at 12-35, was shorthanded, missing Cade Cunningham, who is out for the season after undergoing surgery on his left shin last summer; Bojan Bogdanovic, who was a late scratch with a non-COVID illness, and Marvin Bagley Jr. with a fractured right hand.

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.