27 Jan 2025; New York, New York, USA; New York Knicks forward Mikal Bridges (25) shoots the ball towards Memphis Grizzlies during the second half at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Pictures The season’s last long homestead for New York Knicks is at a historically good start. Denver Nugget’s longest road trip in the season is not going so well.
New York hosts Denver on Wednesday evening in a battle for potential NBA title challengers.
Both teams were on Tuesday after playing on Monday, when Knicks led almost wire-to-thread in a victory 143-106 over Memphis Grizzlies, while Nuggets released a 10-point lead they held in the third quarter and fell to The Memphis Chicago Bulls, 129-121.
Knicks finished its most productive back-to-back route in almost 60 years, after rolling to a victory 143-120 over Sacramento Kings on Saturday night to open the five-game homeland.
New York scored at least 140 points in consecutive matches from December 11-14, 1965, when Knicks beat Baltimore Bullets 150-127 and edged San Francisco Warriors 141-137.
Mikal Bridges (28 points) led seven knicks in double numbers Monday night when they only dragged a time-at 2-0 and dominated the grips at both ends of the floor. New York exceeded Memphis 83-54 after half time and ended the match with 20 steals, the second most of an NBA team in a game this season. Atlanta Hawks had 22 steals against Toronto Raptors on December 29.
New York, now 6-6 against teams that are currently in final positions, will close their homeland by playing four straight teams that are among the six best in the Western Conference. Los Angeles Lakers are scheduled to visit Saturday night, followed by Houston Rockets on Monday night.
“They are a tough matchup-it’s a good test for us,” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau about the third place Grizzlies. “And we had to be tied together. I loved our overall activity. I thought our defensive activity was fantastic. Big, several effort games.”
The defensive effort has not been strong during the last two games for Nuggets, which has lost consecutive competitions for the first time since December 25-27. Denver has not lost three in a row since 9-14 February 2024.
Nuggets has given up a combined 262 points to the Bulls and Minnesota Timberwolves-The most points that Denver handed over in Back-to-Back games since it gave up 264 points in consecutive overtime gains over Toronto Raptors and Brooklyn Nets from October. 28-29.
Denver allowed seven Bulls players to score in double figures Monday evening and gave up 34 points during the fourth quarter, when Chicago was 13-AV-24 from the field (54.2 percent), including 6-AV-13 (46, 2 percent) from 3 -Point land.
“We crushed with the game,” said Nugget’s coach Michael Malone. “You let a team hang around and during the third quarter entered the fourth quarter, they literally just drove the ball down their throat and recovered three.
The defensive fights knocked out another mammoth game by Nikola Jokic. The three times NBA-Mest valuable player published another triple-double (33 points, 12 returns, 14 assists) while he became the first player to ever go 10-of-10 from the field during a first half with at least eight assists.
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