PHILADELPHIA — Quentin Grimes’ return Friday from his left foot injury hasn’t relegated Cam Reddish to the bench. In fact, the former lottery pick enjoyed his best performance of the season since the first game of the season.
Reddish hit all four of his shots and scored 11 points in 15 impactful minutes, helping the Knicks rally for a 106-104 victory over the 76ers at Wells Fargo Center. When Reddish was on the floor, the Knicks outscored Philadelphia by 19 points, and he held his own against impressive Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey in the fourth quarter.
“He was very good,” coach Tom Thibodeau said of Reddish. “Overall hustle, length, running the floor, moving without the ball, a lot of good plays.”
Reddish checked into the game for the first time in the second half with 6:42 left in the final quarter and the Knicks down by 10. Maxey scored just four of his game-high 31 points the rest of the way, with Reddish defending him the majority of the time.
“I tried to go out there, make as much of an impact as I could,” Reddish said. “Defensively, try to do a good job on Maxey. … I just tried to use my length, my size, try to be tough on him to get shots off. Obviously he’s super-fast, so I had to give him a little bit of a cushion.”
“Overall,” Reddish added, “trying to do the small things.”
With 3:25 left in the second quarter, Mitchell Robinson was called for his third foul, then subbed out and went to the locker room favoring his right knee. He didn’t return. The Knicks called the injury right knee soreness.
Thibodeau didn’t have an update afterwards on the center, who has struggled of late. Before going to the Julius Randle-Obi Toppin pairing early in the fourth quarter, Thibodeau went with Jericho Sims for five minutes in his first meaningful action of the early season.
Derrick Rose played a season-low seven minutes, had four turnovers and didn’t get off the bench in the second half.
“Just the way the game unfolded,” Thibodeau said.
The Knicks committed a season-worst 21 turnovers. … The game started off a stretch of three of four games against the loaded Atlantic Division for the Knicks. On Saturday, they will host the defending Eastern Conference champion Celtics and on Wednesday they will visit the Nets.
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