The New York Knicks scored another victory on Wednesday, taking the Utah Jazz as their latest victim. After the win, Knicks offseason recruit Austin Rivers came out with a bold statement, expressing how much confidence ha has on this current group.
According to Rivers, he sees something special in this team:
“I’ve been on bad teams before – this is not one. I can promise you that,” Rivers claimed, via Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. “This is not the Knicks team y’all have been used to covering. You can tell when something is heading in the right direction, and this is strongly heading in the right direction.”
Based on how the Knicks have kicked off their campaign, it's going to be hard to argue against Rivers' statement here. Their 112-100 win over the Jazz marked their sixth of the season, as they improve to 6-3 to open the 2020-21 campaign. That's undeniably a far better start than most experts expected from the Knicks.
Rivers had his best game in a Knicks jersey on Wednesday, finishing with a season-high 23 points (on 9-of-14 shooting), to go along with five triples, three rebounds, two assists, a couple of steals, and just one turnover in 32 minutes of New York's bench. He also scored 14 straight points for the Knicks at one point in the game.
The Knicks are banged up right now, with a couple of key players out injured. Alec Burks, who's had a strong start to his season, is still on the shelf with an ankle sprain, which is also the reason why Rivers logged some extra playing time on Wednesday.