Brandon Jennings made the most out of his 14 minutes of playing time in Madison Square Garden, giving the New York Knicks faithful plenty of excitement during his short act in a 116-98 rout of their crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets on Saturday.
The 6-foot-1 point guard started in place of Derrick Rose, who had to attend his civil trial in Los Angeles.
While Jennings didn't have eye-popping numbers, his pace and agility on the court dazzled the crowd and gave the Knicks a much-needed fuel injection.
He finished with four points, five assists, and four rebounds, as the Knicks outscored the Nets by 12 during his time on the court.
“I feel great. I feel faster. I hope I look faster,” Jennings told ESPN's Ian Begley after the game. “I just feel like myself again.”
The Knicks will depend on Jennings to play a big role off the bench this year and potentially start if something was to come off of Rose's sexual assault case.
Fast, flashy and deceptively quick is how the Compton native made his mark on the court on Saturday night, feeding Kristaps Porzingis with a 40-foot bounce pass that led to a dunk. Then, after stealing the ball from Yogi Ferrell, he casually flipped a pass behind his head to center Marshall Plumlee for another dunk.
“He's been playing like that since he was in high school,” Carmelo Anthony said of Jennings, who signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Knicks this summer. “Nothing has changed. You can tell he's feeling good about himself. He's feeling healthy. He's got that joy about being back out there on the court.”
Jennings said he was at 210 pounds last season while recovering from an achilles injury, but has slimmed down to his natural weight of 175 pounds gradually since December.
A quicker, shiftier Brandon Jennings will help a Knicks team that is getting eight more possessions per 48 minutes so far this preseason than they were last season.
“The pace we're at right now, I love it,” he said.
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