New York Knicks Make Washington Wizards Disappear From In-Season Tournament Contention

Despite missing two starters, the New York Knicks handled business against the Washington Wizards.

Jalen Brunson showing up for tournaments is nothing new, but this time he's taking transferring his springtime prowess to the fall.

Brunson and backcourt buddy Immanuel Quickley took over the New York Knicks' offensive burden with two starters out on Friday night, which produced a 120-99 victory over the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena. 

The primary point guard Brunson led the way with 32 points in a wire-to-wire victory while Quickley added 27 off the bench. Julius Randle put in 22 more on another 50-percent effort from the field (9-of-18), hitting half of his shot attempts in consecutive games while also dealing out a team-best eight assists. Defensively, New York allowed less than 100 points for the fifth time this season after doing so on only 11 occasions all of last year.

Friday's win is the Knicks' first in group play in the inaugural In-Season Tournament. Brunson had 45 points in the opening contest against current group leader Milwaukee on Nov. 3. The Knicks (7-5, 1-1 In-Season Tournament) have also won five of their last six games and improved to 2-1 on an ongoing five-game road trip. 

With the loss, Washington was mathematically eliminated from winning Group B in the East, having dropped each of their three IST contests and five in a row overall.

Immanuel Quickley (in white) drives to the rim during Friday's win over Washington / Geoff Burke, USA TODAY SPORTS

Even with starters RJ Barrett (migraines) and Quentin Grimes (wrist) sidelined, the Knicks were able to handle business from the get-go: behind 11 points each for Brunson and Randle over the opening dozen, New York quickly established a 16-4 lead before settling for a 10-point advantage at the first break. From there on out, Washington (2-10, 0-3 In-Season Tournament) made several futile efforts to get back into the game, but none came closer than five points. In contrast, the Knicks inflated their lead to as much as 23.

Much like Wednesday's win in Atlanta, Brunson's fingerprints were all over the stretch that sealed the victory, though these were provided much earlier: one more Washington run awaited after Corey Kispert's putback made it 95-90 with 9:28 remaining in regulation. Over the next 4:44 after a Knicks timeout, every piece of a 10-2 Knicks run involved Brunson through either points or assists, capping things off with a triple before Washington called a timeout that more or less served as a surrender. New York beautified its box score from there on out and created the final margin with a 31-15 advantage in the fourth.

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Kyle Kuzma led the way with 19 points for the woebegone Wizards, who host the Knicks again on Jan. 6.

The latter portion of another back-to-back, the fourth of the season, awaits the Knicks on Saturday night as they'll immediately hit the road again to play the penultimate game of this trip against the Charlotte Hornets (6 p.m. ET, MSG).