MINNEAPOLIS — Tyler Kolek took his opportunity and ran with it.
He was a silver lining to the Knicks’ 115-104 loss to the Timberwolves on Tuesday night at Target Center.
With Jalen Brunson out for load management, Kolek got his first-career start. And had a career night as a result.
He recorded 20 points and 11 rebounds — both career-highs — along with eight assists. He did it all in 31 minutes — also a career-high.
“Anytime you get an opportunity like that, you try to take advantage of it,” Kolek said. “These guys got confidence in me to go out there and play my game and do what I do. It’s too bad, we just couldn’t get the win.”
Kolek has broken out recently and proven he is capable of being a competent backup point guard to Brunson. That is notable because Miles McBride is considered day-to-day and should return from his ankle injury, and could cut into Kolek’s minutes. And the Knicks could look to upgrade at backup point guard ahead of the deadline, but Kolek’s emergence makes that less of a necessity.
Brown wasn’t as complimentary of Kolek as he had been recently.
“For a young guy, he tried to do what he could while he was out there,” coach Mike Brown said. “But we needed more from him, probably more so defensively than offensively at the end of the day if we expect to get a win on the road.”
Josh Hart was given a Flagrant 1 at the end of the third quarter for pushing out at Rudy Gobert’s knee.
He and Gobert had both been going for a rebound, and Hart appeared to be fouled before getting knocked to the ground, then reaching out at Gobert’s legs while down.
“We were battling for a rebound, I felt like I got pushed and then the other one he kind of smacked down, hit the ball and then hit me,” Hart said. “I wasn’t trying to hit his knee, I didn’t really make too much contact, obviously. Don’t wanna do anything around there, doesn’t help that he’s 7-[foot]-4”. I’m trying to push him but his knee is kinda up there. Just out of frustration, I gotta be better.”
Brown opted for a zone on defense in the second quarter.
“We wanted to mix it up,” Brown said. “We weren’t getting many stops. [Edwards] was playing at a high level, and we wanted to try to just give them a different look.”
