NEW YORK (AP) – Jalen Brunson never talked to his coach about how many minutes he would play, or how many points he had to score.
In the situation the Knicks faced, there’s no need for talk.
“Nothing was said at all,” Brunson said. “Whatever it takes.”
It might take the same effort again in two nights.
Brunson had 38 points, nine rebounds and seven assists while playing all 48 minutes in a season-extending performance, and New York beat the Miami Heat 112-103 yesterday in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The Knicks denied the Heat’s first attempt to become just the second number eight seed to reach the conference finals and sent the series back to Miami for Game 6 tomorrow.
RJ Barrett added 26 points and Julius Randle – his face a little swollen after getting hit by Bam Adebayo in the first quarter – had 24 for the fifth-seeded Knicks, who stayed alive in hopes of reaching the conference finals for the first time since 2000. They did that by getting by the Heat in seven games in the second round, a possibility that still exists.
The Knicks built a 19-point lead in the third quarter, then hung on when the Heat finally got their three-pointers to start falling and cut it to two with two minutes remaining.
“You’ve got to kind of scratch and claw and do whatever you can to win the game,” Barrett said.
Jimmy Butler had 19 points, nine assists and seven rebounds for the Heat, getting held below 25 points for the first time in this postseason. Bam Adebayo added 18 points and Duncan Robinson had 17.
Butler poured in 42 points when the Heat finished off Milwaukee in Game 5 in the first round but took only 12 shots yesterday, even while playing the entire second half.
“It doesn’t matter if I score 40 or 50 or 19 or nine, we always have enough to win,” Butler said. “And if I score 10 points in that game and we win, that wouldn’t be an issue, wouldn’t be a question and I will continue to play the right way.”
The 1999 Knicks, for now, remain the only number eight to get to a conference finals in the current playoff format that began in 1984.
They got all the way to the NBA finals after upsetting the top-seeded Heat in the first round.
The Knicks used a pair of huge quarter-opening runs – 18-2 to begin the second and 23-7 in the third – to build a 73-54 lead midway through the third quarter.
The Heat got it all the way down to 103-101 before Isaiah Hartenstein – in the game because the Heat were intentionally fouling starting centre Mitchell Robinson – slammed home a follow dunk to start New York’s finishing kick.
Only once the Knicks had held on could Brunson finally get a break.
“You have to respect him as a competitor and then find a way to get the job done,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
“And he was able to get the job done, make those big, important plays.”
Quentin Grimes also went all 48 minutes for the Knicks, finishing with eight points.
