Donte DiVincenzo accomplished his biggest season together with his longest performance, a possibility of a playoff series near his hometown and an announcement from his girlfriend that they recently welcomed their baby boy.
Not a nasty day for the 27-year-old.
DiVincenzo exceeded any reasonable expectations by setting the franchise’s single-season record with 283 3-pointers, which he capped Sunday by scoring 25 points on five treys in a career-high 53 minutes during a 120-119 additional time win over the Bulls.
He sat for 30 seconds at the tip of the primary quarter, returned to begin the second, and never went back to the bench again.
“It was actually high-quality,” DiVincenzo, who obliterated Evan Fournier’s previous Knicks’ single-season record for 3s, said about his minutes. “Now we’re within the playoffs and we’re all locked in and there’s no back-to-backs.”
The Knicks, who locked up the 2-seed, will face the winner of Wednesday’s play-in game between the No. 7 Sixers and No. 8 Heat.
on Instagram. Screengrab via X/@NBA_NewYork
If it’s the Sixers, DiVincenzo, a Delaware product, will get games near his family and in town of his college, Villanova.
“Hell yeah [it would be cool],” DiVincenzo said. “Family is correct there. So obviously we [myself, Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart] went to high school in Philly. So whoever we play. But when it’s Philly, it’ll be fun.”
DiVincenzo’s girlfriend, Morgan Calantoni, posted pictures Sunday afternoon of their recent baby on Instagram.
“Life is a lot sweeter with you in it,” Calantoni wrote.
Brunson recorded his eleventh 40-point game of the season on Sunday, tying Patrick Ewing for second in franchise history.
Bernard King still holds the record with 13 40-point games in 1984-85.
Brunson, who emerged as a fringe MVP candidate and will get Second Team All-NBA, finished with averages of 28.7 points on 48 percent shooting — it’s tied with Carmelo Anthony for the third-highest points per game in a season as a Knick, trailing only King (32.9) and Richie Guerin (29.5).
Asked to reflect on his campaign, Brunson said, “It’s not over yet, so I’ll evaluate after I’m done.”
Tom Thibodeau, an assistant coach with the Knicks under Jeff Van Gundy, compared Brunson to Ewing.
“Once I was hired by Jeff on the primary day in the course of the summer, it’s nine o’clock within the morning and Patrick’s already in,” Thibodeau said. “Patrick wasn’t running around telling people how hard he worked, you saw it day-after-day. In the event you just got here into the organization, you said, ‘That is the best way we do things.’
“I believe the identical thing holds true [with Jalen]. As soon as we signed Jalen, he was immediately within the gym. You may are available any day in the summertime, and he’s in at the identical time. Full speed, great concentration, there’s no fake-a-gram or Instagram or whatever they call it.”
Brunson, it needs to be noted, does have an Instagram account and a podcast.
