Karl-Anthony Cities and the New York Knicks are on the verge of advancing to the second spherical of the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
They entered Tuesday evening’s recreation at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York with a 3-1 collection lead within the first spherical towards the visiting Detroit Pistons, they usually let everybody know they meant nothing however enterprise early within the contest, courtesy of a monster two-handed dunk over Cade Cunningham.
Cities, who has been an unimaginable offensive weapon for the Knicks, pulled off a well-executed give-and-go play with New York do-it-all guard Josh Hart earlier than ending with the thunderous throwdown.
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That sequence additionally gave a glimpse of the immense breadth of the previous Kentucky Wildcats star huge man’s offensive capabilities. After getting a go outdoors of the 3-point line, Cities tried to assault off the dribble, even pulling again the ball as if he was going to tug up for a shot from behind the arc. Pistons heart Jalen Duren clearly revered Cities’ contact from deep, as he stayed in entrance of the New York star just for Cities to go the ball to Hart earlier than slicing to the rim and getting the leather-based again.
These weren’t fairly the kind of actions on offense the Knicks might do within the 2023-24 marketing campaign after they nonetheless didn’t have Cities within the fold. New York acquired Cities through a blockbuster commerce with the Minnesota Timberwolves final October that additionally concerned the likes of Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo.
Along with Brunson, Cities has shaped a 1-2 Knicks punch that the Pistons have struggled to comprise and decelerate within the first spherical. Via 4 video games within the collection, Brunson has averaged 33.3 factors and eight.8 assists, whereas Cities put up 22.8 factors on a powerful 53.0 area purpose proportion and 50 % capturing from behind the arc and grabbed 8.5 rebounds per outing.
Ought to City and the Knicks get the job finished within the first spherical by sending Detroit house for an early trip, they’ll play the winner of the opposite matchup within the Japanese Convention bracket of the playoffs between the reigning NBA champions Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic.