Donte DiVincenzo’s confidence and his importance to the Knicks hardly was deterred by a fourth-quarter benching in Game 1.
The starting shooting guard bounced back from a quiet showing in the series opener by scoring 19 points and nailing four 3-pointers in 37 minutes — most notably a go-ahead trey with 13.1 seconds left after he’d missed one earlier in the possession — as the Knicks grabbed a 2-0 series lead over the Sixers at the Garden.
“It was huge. It was loud as hell in there,” DiVincenzo said after the game. “Honestly, after I missed the first one I was really, really, really hoping that Isaiah [Hartenstein] got [the offensive rebound] because I knew the rotation of everything, I was going to get a second look. [Thankfully] he got the offensive rebound.”
DiVincenzo hadn’t shot well in Game 1, finishing 3-for-10 with eight points and a minus-23 rating in 24 minutes through three quarters before sitting on the bench for all of the fourth.
Asked before the game what he expected from DiVincenzo following a poor offensive showing, Tom Thibodeau had replied, “His normal.”
“The thing is he’s a great teammate, too. And that’s what all these guys are,” Thibodeau said afterward. “So everyone wants to play, everyone wants to get their minutes and finish, but you’d have to sacrifice and put the team first, so some nights it’s somebody else.
“Whatever gives us the best chance to win is what we want everybody involved with.”
After the Knicks spotted Philly a 9-0 lead for the second straight game Monday night, DiVincenzo nailed two 3-pointers in the first quarter to help settle them into the game.
He also was fouled and then shoved by Sixers center Joel Embiid with barely five minutes left in the second quarter, hitting both free throws and the technical with the crowd loudly giving Embiid the Trae Young treatment with its first of many “F–k Embiid” chants.
Josh Hart then capped a fabulous first half with 19 points and nine rebounds to get the Knicks within four at halftime.
DiVincenzo was fouled again on a drive to the bucket straight off a jump ball early in the third and sank two more free throws, before he pulled the Knicks within one with another close-range basket.
After DiVincenzo drew a charge on Philly forward Tobias Harris, Jalen Brunson hit a short pull-up off the glass to give the Knicks their first lead of the game, 68-67, with 4:00 left in the third.
Still, Philly led 105-100 with under 30 seconds to play in the fourth before Brunson — who otherwise endured his second straight poor shooting game (8-for-29) — got a fortuitous bounce on a corner 3.
After a steal by Hart, DiVincenzo clanked one from beyond the arc, but Isaiah Hartenstein grabbed an offensive rebound and DiVincenzo drilled the go-ahead trey, earning chants of his last name from the crowd in his walk-off interview with MSG Network.
“Felt like s–t after I missed the first one, to be completely honest,” DiVincenzo said. “I was hoping Isaiah got the offensive rebound, just because I knew I was gonna get a second opportunity.
“We practice that every day: dagger 3s and second-chance 3s. So once OG [Anunoby] got it [from Hartenstein], I just got my feet set, trusted the work I put in and thankfully it went down.”
