76ers 109, Knicks 104: Scenes from the Sixers narrowly escaping Frank Ntilikina

The Knicks lost tonight, but that’s not the story.

The story is that Frank Ntilikina (once again, I might add) looked like the most valuable player on this Knicks team against an extremely capable 76ers team.

The Knicks wound up losing 109-104, but Ntilikina had 17 points on 6-8 shooting (2-4 from three) and gave the Knicks their usual dose of elite defense to go with his unexpected scoring outburst.

Frank wasn’t the only story, even if he was absolutely the biggest story with arguably the most confident and aggressive offensive game we’ve seen from him in a Knicks uniform.

The Knicks were absolutely blistering coming out of the half with a 15-0 run, before the Sixers eventually answered with a 10-0 run of their own to narrow the deficit heading into the final period. Of course, they wound up winning.

Marcus Morris didn’t shoot that great (8-21) but had a team-high 22 points, and Mitchell Robinson was in foul trouble most of the game, but those two put together one of the more entertaining two-play sequences you’ll ever see:

(Spoiler: They did not keep spamming that connection, and they did not win.)

Julius Randle did some good things:

But also some very bad things:

That play, along with a foul no-call on a Marcus Morris drive that led to a transition three for Philly late, probably sealed the Knicks’ fate as the losing team tonight.

Oh, but Dennis Smith Jr. looked good on offense again! If we need another silver lining (we always do). Smith had 13 points and two assists on 5-9 shooting (2-3 from deep!) and continued his redemption tour.

And RJ Barrett was relatively quiet, but this was a hell of a highlight:

That’s all for now. Check out KnicksFanTV if you want to chat some. Recap King MMiranda will have a full recap soon.