Keldon Johnson scored 30 points and Romeo Langford added a career-high 23 as the San Antonio Spurs had every answer late on the way to a 122-115 win over the visiting New York Knicks on Thursday.
Julius Randle’s season-high 41 points weren’t enough for New York, which lost its fifth consecutive game.
The Spurs held an 11-point lead at halftime and were never really challenged in the second half, going up by 17 after back-to-back 3-pointers by Johnson with less than four minutes left in the third quarter. Julius Randle’s 3-pointer at the end of the third brought New York within 92-79.
The Knicks cut their deficit to eight points on a 3-pointer by Miles McBride with 3:17 to play, but New York never got closer than seven points. The Knicks wound up shooting 42.2 percent from the floor, while the Spurs hit 51.1 percent of their field-goal attempts.
Tre Jones scored 13, Jeremy Sochan had 12 and Jakob Poeltl grabbed 12 rebounds for the Spurs, which have won two of their past three games. San Antonio won without Devin Vassell (knee).
Randle completed a double-double with 11 rebounds, and Immanuel Quickley added a career-best 36 points for New York. The Knicks, who got 11 points from Evan Fournier, played without Jalen Brunson (hip) and RJ Barrett (finger).
The Knicks led by as many as five points in the opening quarter after back-to-back 3-pointers from Randle made it 23-18. San Antonio swept to the front later in the period via a 9-0 run and took a 38-29 advantage by quarter’s end on the strength of Josh Richardson’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
San Antonio stayed on a torrid shooting pace during the second quarter, building as much as a 14-point lead after a Jones 3-pointer with 8:03 to play in the half. New York fought back to within 53-47 after a free throw by Quickley before the Spurs scored the next six points. San Antonio led 64-53 at the break.
Johnson paced the Spurs with 11 points before halftime, with Langford hitting for 10. Randle led all scorers with 21 points before the break, and Quickley added 11.
–Field Level Media