Donte DiVincenzo completed his greatest season with his longest performance, a possibility of a playoff series near his hometown and an announcement from his girlfriend that they recently welcomed their baby boy.
Not a bad day for the 27-year-old.
DiVincenzo exceeded any reasonable expectations by setting the franchise’s single-season record with 283 3-pointers, which he capped Sunday by scoring 25 points on five treys in a career-high 53 minutes during a 120-119 overtime win over the Bulls. He sat for 30 seconds at the end of the first quarter, returned to start the second, and never went back to the bench again. “It was actually fine,” DiVincenzo, who obliterated Evan Fournier’s previous Knicks’ single-season record for 3s, said about his minutes. “Now we’re in the playoffs and we’re all locked in and there’s no back-to-backs.”
The Knicks, who locked up the 2-seed, will face the winner of Wednesday’s play-in game between the No. 7 Sixers and No. 8 Heat.
Brunson recorded his 11th 40-point game of the season on Sunday, tying Patrick Ewing for second in franchise history.
Bernard King still holds the record with 13 40-point games in 1984-85.
Brunson, who emerged as a fringe MVP candidate and should get Second Team All-NBA, finished with averages of 28.7 points on 48 percent shooting — it’s tied with Carmelo Anthony for the third-highest points per game in a season as a Knick, trailing only King (32.9) and Richie Guerin (29.5).
Asked to reflect on his campaign, Brunson said, “It’s not over yet, so I’ll evaluate when I’m done.”
Tom Thibodeau, an assistant coach with the Knicks under Jeff Van Gundy, compared Brunson to Ewing.
“When I was hired by Jeff on the first day in the middle of the summer, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and Patrick’s already in,” Thibodeau said. “Patrick wasn’t running around telling people how hard he worked, you saw it every day. If you just came into the organization, you said, ‘This is the way we do things.’
“I think the same thing holds true [with Jalen]. As soon as we signed Jalen, he was immediately in the gym. You could come in any day in the summer, and he’s in at the same time. Full speed, great concentration, there’s no fake-a-gram or Instagram or whatever they call it.”
Brunson, it should be noted, does have an Instagram account and a podcast.
The New York Knicks guard won two NCAA championships and a Final Four MOP with Villanova. On Monday, he made Knicks history.
DiVincenzo torched the Detroit Pistons for 40 points in a 124-99 win. He hit 11 3-pointers in the process, breaking the Knicks’ all-time record for a single game. He did it in front of an appreciative Madison Square Garden crowd.
DiVincenzo was sitting on 10 3-pointers late in the fourth quarter with the Knicks leading 115-89. The tally had him in a three-way tie with J.R. Smith — who reached the mark in 2014 — and Evan Fournier, who matched Smith in 2022. With 3:19 remaining in the game, he pulled up from beyond the arc on the right wing and claimed the record for his own.
The home crowd responded with an ovation. Seconds later, head coach Tom Thibodeau subbed him out for a curtain call.
DiVincenzo was one of five Knicks to score in double figures against the hapless Pistons, who added DiVincenzo’s moment to a tally of records they’ve fallen on the wrong end of this season, most notably tying the league’s all-time longest losing streak.
On the night, he shot 14 of 23 from the field and 11 of 20 from long distance. He added five rebounds, two assists and two steals as the Knicks improved to 43-28 to remain in fourth place in a tight Eastern Conference playoff race.
The Pistons fell to a league-worst 12-60.
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