For the Knicks stars, their season-defining moments blend together. Some stand out more than the rest, but they’re not anomalies.
A run to the NBA Finals wouldn’t be possible without Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart stringing moments together — game after game after game — and anchoring the Knicks.
But throughout the regular season, a 53-29 campaign that featured an NBA Cup title, each member of the Knicks supporting cast took a turn in the spotlight.
These are the hidden moments — the contributions that could’ve been the difference in seeding and momentum and that illustrate how every member of the roster truly contributed to an Eastern Conference championship.
With the Knicks set to appear in their first Finals since 1999, The Post dives into those underlying gems.
In what has been a roller-coaster season for Shamet, as he went from injured to out of the rotation to hitting one of the biggest shots in franchise history in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, this was one of his first highs.
With the Knicks missing Brunson (sprained ankle) and without Anunoby (strained hamstring) for the final three-plus quarters, Shamet went off for a career-best 36 points on 12-for-19 shooting against the Heat — including 6-for-12 from beyond the arc and an outrageous 30 points in the second half. He was also serenaded by Knicks fans chanting his name.
It was just a November win for the Knicks, a 140-132 victory, but it allowed them to avoid an 0-2 start in NBA Cup group play and eventually helped them advance.
Five nights after Shamet played hero against the Heat, he delivered in the clutch against the Mavericks, hitting two 3s across the final 1:03 to turn a two-point deficit into a three-point lead. He started in place of an injured Anunoby and finished with nine points on 3-for-6 shooting.
Dallas still had a chance to tie or take the lead in the final seconds, but Shamet drew an offensive foul on Brandon Williams — who hooked Shamet’s left arm — allowing the Knicks to hold on for a two-point victory.
In a game defined by the Knicks finally getting their revenge on the Magic in what felt like a budding rivalry, Hukporti, playing 23 minutes with Towns out, was named the team’s Defensive Player of the Game — a team award featuring Timberland boots, a hard hat and a construction vest.
He blocked three shots, recorded a steal, grabbed seven rebounds, added six points on offense and, at the start of his second NBA season, flashed how he could log dependable rotation minutes for the Knicks when called upon.
Before the NBA Cup final against the Spurs, Clarkson shot just 6-for-39 (15.4 percent) from beyond the arc across his previous 10 games. For the season, he was hitting just 28.6 percent of his 3s. But with the Knicks trailing by three early in the fourth quarter, Clarkson sank one to tie the game at 94.
Then, on the next possession, he hit one to give them the lead. He added another basket, a steal and a block in the final frame, too, but his ability to fight through a slump quietly helped them win their first title of any kind since 1973.
If one of the Knicks’ biggest question marks entering the regular season was their backup point guard situation after Malcolm Brogdon’s sudden retirement, then this served as Kolek’s resounding message that he — at the time — belonged in the conversation.
The Knicks trailed by 17 points with 10:26 left, and over the rest of their eventual 126-124 win over the Cavaliers, Kolek collected 11 points, two assists, one stunning block of Donovan Mitchell and one rebound.
The second-round pick finished with 16 points that afternoon, helping the Knicks improve to 21-9 amid their scorching start. Kolek’s bench role all but evaporated behind the rise of Shamet, the acquisition of Jose Alvarado and the revival of Clarkson.
But for one afternoon, on one of the marquee days of the regular season, the spotlight belonged to Kolek.
An X post from an injured Hart during the Knicks game against the Hawks captured the magnitude of his promising moment.
It was a flash from McCullar. It was unexpected. But in a rotation that consists of mostly veterans, McCullar — a 2024 second-round pick who had barely played at all in his first season-plus — filled the role of Hart perfectly against the Hawks.
He finished with 13 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals in 23 minutes off the bench, spending the second-most time of any Knick guarding Atlanta star Trae Young and holding him scoreless when matched up with him.
“YEA KEV!” Hart wrote in his post during the game.
McCullar’s cameo in the rotation was fleeting and lasted around a week. But in a 128-125 victory that night in Atlanta, McCullar made the difference for a shorthanded Knicks group.
With Hart still out, Diawara started in his place, dropped 13 points in the first quarter, finished with a career-best 18 for the game and hit all three of his 3-point attempts.
As a 20-year-old rookie on an expiring contract, it served as an audition for why Diawara — who’d never scored more than five points in a game entering the night — should be a piece that the Knicks should keep developing, while also bumping their record to 23-9 near the end of the calendar year.
There would be growing pains and slumps to follow for the Brooklyn native acquired ahead of the deadline to provide guard help. But in just his third game with the Knicks, Alvarado tied a career high with eight 3s in just 18 minutes of the Knicks’ 49-point rout of the 76ers ahead of the All-Star break.
This, finally, was Alvarado’s first true homecoming moment. It happened against a contender, too. In the Knicks’ 108-106 comeback win over the Rockets, “Jose, Jose, Jose” chants echoed throughout the Garden.
He finished with a plus-18 in 20 minutes off the bench, but the lasting contributions occurred in the fourth quarter — when Alvarado collected five points, three assists and three steals in over 10 minutes of playing time.
Diawara’s spot in the regular-season rotation was in flux when the Knicks signed Jeremy Sochan during the All-Star break, but Diawara strengthened his case by collecting 14 points — but also, perhaps most importantly, displayed aggressiveness by taking 14 shots, 13 of them 3-pointers.
And for the Knicks, who were scuffling at the time, it was a key contribution in their 25-point victory over the Spurs, toppling a team that’d just navigated the entire month of February without a loss.
Clarkson needed a game like this. He’d fallen out of Brown’s rotation. But back in the arena where he spent 5 ½ seasons and won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2020-21, Clarkson went off for 27 points on 10-for-15 shooting across 26 minutes as the Knicks stormed back from an 18-point deficit.
At the macro level, the 17-point win helped the Knicks, playing for seeding, avoid a brutal loss against a team more focused on its draft lottery odds. But for Clarkson, that night constructed the foundation for his late-season revival, where he finally started to earn back Brown’s trust ahead of the postseason.
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