NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Kristaps Porzingis scored 12 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter and the New York bench came up big Wednesday as the Knicks rallied for a 95-90 victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
The late surge saw the Knicks avoid an embarrassing loss to the league’s worst team in a clash of cross-town rivals at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Porzingis, back in action after a stomach ailment sidelined him from Tuesday’s defeat at Washington, made four of his six shots in the final period and pulled down four rebounds to help the struggling Knicks notch their sixth win in 22 games.
Willy Hernangomez added 14 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter for New York, who couldn’t get ahead until Porzingis’s dunk with 5:44 remaining.
“I think the adrenaline helped in those moments,” said Porzingis, who sat out Tuesday with a stomach virus. “You don’t even think about it you’re tired. You just keep going. At that point, we had to give our all and that was the only thing on my mind.”
By then Knicks star Carmelo Anthony, the subject of persistent trade rumors, was on the bench. He sat out the entire fourth quarter having scored 15 points on six-of-22 shooting from the floor.
“I didn’t think about it,” Anthony said. “I was just in the moment going with the flow. I looked one time, it was five minutes (left), ain’t no way I’m going back in there. These guys had it rolling. There was no need for us to go back in there and break up what they had going on.”
The Nets squandered a double-digit lead against the Knicks for the second time this season and lost their seventh straight.
“They picked up their intensity, picked up their heat, picked up their heat on the ball,” Nets coach Kenny Atkinson said of the Knicks.
“We turned it over, we didn’t get the type of shots we wanted and then I thought they started getting second and third shots. It’s tough to give any team in the NBA multiple shots at the rim.”
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