With Julius Randle presently sidelined by an ankle injury, only one Knick has appeared in every game this season.
That player is backup center Isaiah Hartenstein, who played the entire fourth quarter for the second consecutive game in Friday’s win in Cleveland.
Hartenstein recorded five rebounds, two blocked shots and one steal during the Knicks’ fourth-quarter shutdown of the Cavaliers, holding them to 14 points over the final 12 minutes.
“I thought Isaiah’s defense was phenomenal,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said of Hartenstein — who had never played more than 30 games in a season before seeing action in 68 contests with the Clippers in 2021-22. “He made a number of good plays.”
Starting center Mitchell Robinson also enjoyed a strong game against the Cavaliers, who were without their starter, Jarrett Allen (groin).
Robinson finished with 10 points and 14 rebounds, including nine on the offensive glass, in 22 minutes.
RJ Barrett on his third-quarter argument during a timeout with teammate Obi Toppin: “We’re good. We see each other basically every day. You tell me that you haven’t had an argument with a family member before, you know what I’m saying? You’ve had an argument with a family member before. That was all it was. Right after the timeout, we squashed it. I think he scored six straight points after that, so something worked.”
Thibodeau typically said that no one should read too much into Friday’s win over the Cavs, the Knicks’ likely first-round playoff opponent.
“You can take out whatever you choose to take out of it. For us, I want the focus, I don’t want to change it,” Thibodeau said. “So after tonight, then it’s just the next step. We don’t want to change our approach. I think attitude and approach are a big part of winning.
“It’s easy to get distracted in this league if you’re a player or a coach. And you guys [in the media] gotta do your job, and your job is to try to trick everyone, right, so you wanna talk [about] 10 games from now, next year, next month, whatever, and our job is to stay locked in and to not let you guys take us off course.”
