It wasn’t quite a St. Peter’s miracle, but the Knicks pulled off their own little upset Friday in South Beach.
Trailing by as many as 17 in the fourth quarter, Tom Thibodeau rode his youngsters to a shocker over the Miami Heat, the No. 1 team in the East, 111-103.
Immanuel Quickley was the hero, scoring 16 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter while carving up the Heat’s vaunted defense. Much of the comeback occurred with RJ Barrett on the bench, and with a lineup featuring three rookies – Jericho Sims, Quentin Grimes and Miles McBride – who were out-dueling Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry.
Julius Randle watched in street clothes, missing his third straight games with a quad contusion. The Knicks (32-42) have won two straight.
In the playoff picture, it doesn’t mean much for the Knicks. The Hawks beat the Warriors on Friday and remained five games ahead of New York for the final play-in spot.
But it was an encouraging performance from the young core, following their strong performance two nights earlier in a win over the Hornets. It was also the first time Thibodeau beat the Heat in six tries as Knicks head coach.
Butler led the Heat (47-26) with 30 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, but Erik Spoelstra’s squad was outscored by 23 points in the fourth quarter and couldn’t contain Quickley, who shot 6-for-12 on the night.
The Knicks caught the Heat in a precarious position.
Two nights earlier, the Heat had a public blowout on the team bench, with Jimmy Butler and Erik Spoelstra getting into a heated argument during a timeout. It turned extra ugly when Heat reserve Udonis Haslem, more of a figurehead cheerleader than NBA player at 41 years old, got involved and told Butler repeatedly, “I’ll beat your ass.”
It was one of those moments that could break a team but also something familiar to Butler, a strong-headed antagonist. Not too long ago, Butler stormed out of a Timberwolves practice with Tom Thibodeau as the coach and basically demanded a trade on TV.
Former Miami guard Goran Dragic, now with the Nets, said it’s a normal part of the celebrated Heat culture.
“”I mean, that’s normal. I’ve been here for seven years (in Miami), and this is how we operate,” Dragic said. “And at the end of the day, everybody’s doing their job; nothing is personal. And I know Jimmy well, he’s such a competitor guy he wants to be in every game. And Spo is the same way. So in the end, when you have two – I would not call it egos, you know what I mean – but they’re trying to do their job. And at the end of the day, it’s not the first time that happened. It happened in practice and this, I’m not saying about Jimmy, but other players. And you just clean it up and move on. So that’s it.”
The Heat moved on by losing to the Knicks, with Saturday’s back-to-back matchup looming against Kevin Durant’s Nets.
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