Many thought this first-round series with the Detroit Pistons would prove to be a difficult matchup for the New York Knicks. And while there is still plenty of basketball to be played, things are looking pretty solid for the third-seeded Knicks right about now.
Heading into a hostile environment on Thursday night where a crowd of rowdy Pistons fans were anxiously awaiting their first home playoff game in years, it would have been easy to succumb to the pressure. But the Knicks stepped up in a big way, riding the hot shooting of Karl-Anthony Towns and the clutch play of Jalen Brunson to the win.
It's certainly easy to look at the stat sheet and point to KAT's team-leading 31 points as one of the biggest reasons for New York's win that put them up 2-1 in the series. But if you watched this one, you noticed the game-changing aspect of one other player: Josh Hart.
There's no secret about the fact that Hart plays a brand of basketball that is very tailored to winning. No, he's not an All-Star. And he's not going to accumulate the kind of raw stats that make the more casual fan believe he's anything more than a solid role player. But when you truly understand why what he does is so impactful, you begin to see him as so much more.
Josh Hart plays a winning brand of basketball
When you're watching a movie and you see a high school coach rant and rave about how he wants players that are willing to do all the little things that contribute to winning basketball, they're talking about players like Hart. Number three for the Knicks finished Thursday's contest with just six points, and yet he made a massive impact on the game.
Twice in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter of Game 3, Hart made a hustle play that kept New York on the path to securing the win. After Detroit had cut the lead to five with 3:39 remaining, he snagged a defensive rebound that then led to a made Karl-Anthony Towns jumper on the other end.
Then, with 1:15 left and the Knicks up five again, Hart rebounded a Tim Hardaway Jr. miss and set up a New York possession where Brunson scored to give the road team an even greater cushion. It was making possession-finishing plays like getting these rebounds that silenced the Pistons' crowd and threw a wet blanket on their hopes of pulling off the comeback.
This is just what Josh Hart does night after night. And when he's not going up strong for a contested board, he's blocking out on a shot attempt, he's screening, he's diving on the floor and doing whatever it takes to earn his team a victory. In a way, he is New York's Draymond Green.
It's not the stuff that will make it on SportsCenter, that's for sure. But although it may sound like the biggest cliche in the book, it's players like Josh Hart that can swing a playoff game when the star power is evenly matched.