Donte DiVincenzo’s Makes History For New York vs Detroit

Last night, in a 124-99 shellacking of the miserable Detroit Pistons, wing Donte DiVincenzo set a new record for his New York Knicks by connecting on a whopping 11 of his 20 triple tries. He tied New York’s prior record with 5:11 remaining in the contest’s fourth quarter. The Knicks are now just 0.5 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for a shot at the third seed in the Eastern Conference.

Following the contest, Detroit head coach Monty Williams (who’s getting paid $78 million across six years to lead the Pistons to the single-worst record in the league by two games) appeared to critique New York’s decision to play its primary contributors with the game already out of hand late into the game. When DiVincenzo scored his record 11th triple, the Knicks were already leading by 41 points, and even Tom Thibodeau (a huge fan of overextending his best players) may have wanted to bring him off the floor.

Michael Scotto of ClutchPoints presented Williams’ postgame remarks, where he appeared to bemoan the Knicks’ decision. He then contrasted the retaliatory response from New York swingman Josh Hart, who raises many a salient point.

“I don’t care about their team at all. I could care less,” Williams claimed. “Those guys, the way they got those threes, I don’t want to be a part of that story.”

“If he didn’t want to be part of the story, he should’ve told his guys to defend better,” Hart responded in the Knicks locker room when told about Williams’ bitter presser. “What else [is] there to say? We’ve got a guy that’s hot. We’re going to try to find the guy that’s hot. That’s common sense in basketball.” Hart enjoyed a solid night himself, recording an 11-points, 14-rebound, 10-assist triple-double.

DiVincenzo wrapped up with a team-high 40 points on 14-of-23 shooting splits from the floor and 1-of-3 shooting from the foul line. He also pulled down five rebounds, two assists, two steals, and one block. It is a bit strange that DiVincenzo played for 40:50 in a blowout game where he could have sat out the entire fourth quarter (had he not been on the cusp of a record, anyway). Two other Knicks starters, Hart (39:48) and shooting guard Miles McBride (43:18) played big minutes, in a game where, again, the contest was out of hand by the fourth quarter. All told, five Knicks scored in double digits.

Tomorrow night, New York will travel up north to face off against another tanking East squad, the Toronto Raptors. The action tips off at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.