NEW YORK — The streak couldn’t withstand daggers from Chris Paul and a dud from Julius Randle.
With the game in the balance, Paul knocked down three shots in the final 90 seconds — including the punctuation mark 3-pointer — as the Suns upended New York on Monday at the Garden, 118-110.
It halted the Knicks’ winning streak at nine, and it included Randle crashing back to earth while missing 11 of his 17 shots.
Randle was outplayed by Devin Booker, who dropped 33 points and cooked his mark Reggie Bullock. The Suns (43-18) recovered from their loss a day earlier in Brooklyn to douse the NBA’s hottest team with cold water.
They scored 12 points in the final 3-plus minutes. The Knicks hung around against one of the league’s best but they’re too good this year for moral victories.
In a typical Knicks season, a matchup with the Suns would prompt storylines of regret and longing.
It would have been a reminder of a clear mistake in 2018, when Steve Mills and Scott Perry used their eighth pick for Kevin Knox over Mikal Bridges. Today, Knox is rooted on Thibodeau’s bench, continuing down his disappointing trajectory. Bridges, who was firmly on New York’s radar and chosen ninth, is a reliable two-way starter on a contender. He scored 21 points on Monday, including back-to-back clutch buckets late in the fourth quarter.
The game would’ve been a reminder that they didn’t trade for Paul, who is again playing at an All-NBA level. Thibodeau even acknowledged Monday that Paul didn’t want to be play for the Knicks, which could be shrugged off instead as a product of the franchise’s ugly past, rather than its current encouraging direction.
Or Monday’s game would’ve been a tease with Booker, who has been rumored as a Knicks trade target because of his Kentucky and CAA connections. It’s one of those pipe dreams that dominates the Knicks’ atmosphere late in lottery-bound seasons. But it wasn’t worth the space on Monday, late in April, when the more pressing question was whether Thibodeau or Phoenix’s Monty Williams should be Coach of the Year.
RJ Barrett, not surprisingly, cast his vote for Thibodeau.
“I think Thibs has done a great job,” Barrett said. “For us to have really the same starting lineup (as last season), a lot of the same players, and completely turn it around like we have this year, it’s really a credit to Thibs, his staff, guys getting better.
“I think to have the same group that we did last year to come and do this now, I feel like you got to give it to Thibs.”
Barrett may be right but Monty won this one.
