The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers 108-94 on Friday night in Game 3 and moved to the brink of the Eastern Conference Finals with a 3-0 series lead. It was their sixth straight playoff win, and it looked like the kind of night that tells a series the same story over and over until one team has to stop listening.
Jalen Brunson scored 33 points and added nine assists and five rebounds, while Mikal Bridges scored 23 points and spent much of the night smothering Tyrese Maxey and others at the point of attack. Josh Hart had 12 points and 11 rebounds despite playing with an injured left thumb, Mitchell Robinson threw down a vicious alley-oop poster dunk over Joel Embiid, and Landry Shamet gave the Knicks useful minutes off the bench. Karl-Anthony Towns did not reach double figures in scoring, but he still had 12 rebounds and seven assists. The Knicks outrebounded Philadelphia 49-33.
That balance has become the Knicks’ calling card in this run. Brunson can take over a game, but the offense is built so the burden does not fall on one player every night, and the defense is physical enough to force the other team into uncomfortable possessions. Mike Brown called it “an equal opportunity offense,” and Friday was another night when the pieces fit. Earlier in the series, Nick Nurse said his team was “really bothered by some (Knicks) physicality,” and that was the thread that ran through Game 3 from the opening tip to the final margin.
Nurse said the Sixers were again knocked off their line by contact. “I thought there were a couple when we drove down the lane and they just clobbered us,” he said. “You gotta play through that. You gotta be able to stay on your feet and be able to complete the pass.” The Knicks did the opposite. They hit first, defended the rim, and kept Philadelphia from turning the game into a track meet.
Brown saw the same thing from the other side. “They kinda punched us in the mouth to start the game,” he said, before adding that his team “settled down, and they figured it out the next three quarters.” The Sixers led with force early, but the Knicks answered with better shot-making, steadier ball movement and more stops, and they never gave that opening back.
The win also came with OG Anunoby sidelined by injury, yet the Knicks still controlled enough of the game to make the absence feel like another test they passed rather than a reason for worry. That matters because the run has now reached a point where the conversation is no longer about whether New York is good enough to survive one round. It is about whether this group can keep producing championship-level basketball as the games get bigger. The Oklahoma City Thunder remain the heavy betting favorite to win the title, and the Knicks are still in the conference semifinals, with the conference finals the next stage if they advance.
For Philadelphia, the math is grim and the style issue is worse. A team can survive being beaten in one area. It is harder to survive being beaten in the air, on the glass and at the point of attack all at once. The Knicks are doing all three. If they keep doing that for one more game, they will not just have a 3-0 lead. They will have finished the series with the kind of authority that leaves no debate about who owned it.
