Philly’s fingerprints were all over Game 1 of Knicks-Pistons series, including New York’s decisive scoring run

NEW YORK — Cameron Payne buried the game-tying three-pointer and strutted across the floor, bobbling his head in unabashed celebration.

Jalen Brunson briefly slipped away from the Knicks’ bench to change his Kobe Bryant shoes, though coach Tom Thibodeau quipped that he thought his All-NBA point guard had “grabbed his cape.”

The matchup between the Knicks and Detroit Pistons was already the NBA’s first-round playoff series that, without the 76ers, featured the most Philly flavor. Then those connections had their fingerprints all over the Knicks’ 21 unanswered fourth-quarter points, which flipped Detroit’s Game 1 upset bid into a 123-112 Knicks victory Saturday night at Madison Square Garden.

“[The Pistons] pushed us,” said Brunson, the former Villanova star and two-time national champion. “We just found a way, in the fourth quarter, to get stops and find a way to win.”

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Brunson, who less than two weeks ago returned from a sprained ankle that kept him sidelined for a month, was the unsurprising engine of the Knicks’ surge.

After shooting 4 of 15 in the first half — then appearing to tweak that ankle in the third quarter — Brunson finished with 34 points and eight assists. Twelve of those points, along with three assists, came in the final period, when third-seeded New York continuously turned defense into offense by scoring 11 points off eight Detroit turnovers.

His floater cut what had been an eight-point deficit entering the frame to 98-95 with less than nine minutes to play. Then, Brunson split two defenders and finished through contact to give the Knicks a two-point advantage. Then, teammate Josh Hart found Brunson for two consecutive transition buckets that pushed New York ahead, 107-98, with less than six minutes to play.

“I just had to reset and just find a way to get going in the second half,” said Brunson, complimenting the sixth-seeded Pistons’ game plan and physicality. “Teammates had the utmost confidence in me, and I appreciate that to the fullest.”

Hart, another former Villanova standout who last month broke the Knicks’ single-season record for triple-doubles, bounced back from a first half when he had more fouls (three) than points (zero).

After those fourth-quarter dishes to Brunson, Hart converted inside twice to cap the Knicks’ 21-0 run. He totaled eight of his 13 points on 4-for-5 shooting in that final period, and added three rebounds and three assists during that span.

But Payne — the former Sixers trade-deadline acquisition who has long been full of personality and microwave scoring — provided the Knicks’ initial fourth-quarter spark.

His defense helped cause the Pistons to begin the period with a five-second violation and shot-clock violation on consecutive possessions. Then, Payne scored 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting in less than four minutes of game action. That personal burst included an and-one finger roll layup, the game-tying deep shot, and another three-pointer that put the Knicks up, 103-98, with less than seven minutes remaining.

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It all made Payne want to scream, “Let’s turn up!” to his mother in the crowd heading into a timeout. It was the type of performance he said he had “been kind of waiting on” since signing with the Knicks as a free agent last summer.

And he recognized the symmetry, after he scored 11 off-the-bench points for the Sixers against the Knicks in Game 3 of last year’s first-round series.

“When we’re on a run and I’m playing real good, sometimes I check out and my mind [goes] blank,” Payne said. “I’m trying to get hyped, still.”

Before the Knicks’ fourth-quarter onslaught, Saturday appeared ripe for a Tobias Harris redemption story.

The much-maligned former Sixer, who signed with Detroit last summer, scored 22 first-half points — including a splash beyond the arc just before the buzzer. He looked like the sage veteran guiding the upstart Pistons through their first playoff game since 2019. It also was a dramatic (and poetic) turnaround from his last playoff outing against these Knicks — which doubled as his final game as a Sixer — when he went scoreless on 0-for-2 shooting in a Game 6 and season-ending defeat.

But then Harris’ production faded following the break, when he attempted just three shots and scored three points.

“I felt great,” Harris said. “Just taking what was presented for me through the course of the game and picking my spots out there. A lot of those looks just came in the flow of it: us getting stops and us getting out there and me taking advantage of certain situations.”

The other Philly-area connections in this series include Pistons big man Jalen Duren, the Sharon Hill native and Roman Catholic product who finished with seven points and six rebounds (including five on the offensive end) but battled foul trouble at times in his first playoff action. Mikal Bridges, who is still the newest ‘Nova Knick’ following last summer’s blockbuster trade, totaled eight points and posted a startling team-worst plus/minus of minus-16. Former Sixers Paul Reed and P.J. Tucker are on the rosters of the Pistons and Knicks, respectively, but did not play Saturday.

Still, those Philly fingerprints were all over Game 1 of this series, including the Knicks’ overwhelming surge to seize control of the victory.

Brunson would not give credit to his footwear change. And as he got up to leave his press conference, a reporter asked if he would sport the Philly legend’s lime-green sneakers again.

“Maybe,” Brunson said.