This is Catching Strays, the Daily News\u2019 regular Knicks rundown for the quotes, stats and storylines that didn\u2019t make a headline.<\/p>\n
Today: Grizzlies guard Ty Jerome\u2019s is officially wilding, Mike Brown \u201ca little excited\u201d about the struggles, the Knicks\u2019 backup point guard carousel, and Jordan Clarkson\u2019s \u201cultimate pro\u201d role.<\/p>\n
Ty Jerome is wilding<\/p>\n
The Memphis Grizzlies lost for the first time this season, 135-134, in overtime to the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday. But this Catching Strays item isn\u2019t about the Grizzlies.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about Ty Jerome.<\/p>\n
Ty Jerome is officially wilding.<\/p>\n
Allow me to explain.<\/p>\n
The unassuming, 6-5 Jerome scored 40 points on 14-of-22 shooting and 5-of-6 from 3-point range in the loss to the Pelicans. He scored nine straight points in the final 1:43 of regulation to force overtime, then missed a 15-footer at the buzzer.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t even his best game of the young season: Jerome scored a career-high 45 in the opener against the Utah Jazz while missing only eight shots. He had 28 points on 50% shooting in a win at Golden State and 31 with six assists in a win at Sacramento.<\/p>\n
The Jazz and Kings, it\u2019s fair to note, are both 1-6. Anyone can do this to losing teams, one might surmise. Perhaps \u201cwilding\u201d is a tad bit of an overstatement.<\/p>\n
\u201cTweaking\u201d might fit better for the herky-jerky style the Grizzlies guard\u00a0uses to shake defenders out of their sneakers. Jerome is basketball\u2019s Harry Houdini. Now you see him, now you don\u2019t, over and over until the ball finds the bottom of the net.<\/p>\n
Last season, Jerome averaged a career-high 19.7 points in 15 games, up from 12.5 the year before in Cleveland. Through six games this season, he\u2019s averaging 28.2 points, with two 40-point games. He\u2019s the betting favorite for Most Improved Player of the Year, and the calendar just flipped to November.<\/p>\n
The best part? Jerome has the kind of game that would make your local YMCA proud: He\u2019ll pump-fake, step through or pull up from deep, leaving your best defender in deep frustration.<\/p>\n
Ty Jerome is like that. He\u2019s officially wilding. He\u2019s tweaking. Or maybe, just maybe, he is him.<\/p>\n
\u2018A little excited\u2019<\/p>\n
The Knicks are 3-4 after beating the Nets, and Mike Brown talked Tuesday about the first seven games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a little excited that we\u2019re struggling,\u201d he told reporters after practice on Tuesday. \u201cI want to see if we can right now figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jalen Brunson said Tuesday that this season is a new test for the Knicks and not a repeat of last year\u2019s run.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess you can say it\u2019s the things we worked for. We worked really hard to obviously do what we did last year. This is just a new test for us,\u201d Brunson said after practice. \u201cRegardless of if teams are circling us or not, we gotta go out there and, regardless of that team\u2019s mentality or not, have the right mentality that we have and string some wins together and just get back to who we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the things that we see on film and stuff are controllables. We\u2019ll get back to it, we\u2019re working every single day. This is a new journey, this is not last year, this is a totally different year. It\u2019s a new journey for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Backups in order<\/p>\n
Jose Alvarado returned Monday after missing four straight games with an ankle sprain. He played 8:43 in the 103-90 win over Brooklyn and went scoreless, missing his only shot, a 3-pointer. He finished with no rebounds, no assists, one block and a minus-3.<\/p>\n
Before the game, Brown said he had sat both point guards down to talk about their roles. After the game, the coach said the situation called for a role reversal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Tyler\u2019s minutes were tremendous,\u201d said Brown. \u201cHe did a fantastic job running the team, getting us some easy looks, and then he was solid defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kolek was asked what it said that his coach turned to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows his confidence in every guy on this roster,\u201d he said. \u201cAs he\u2019s showing, he\u2019ll be throwing the guy in at any time to be the spark. I happen to be one of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Ultimate pro\u2019<\/p>\n
Jordan Clarkson played just under 11 minutes and scored seven points on 3-of-5 shooting on Monday. The Knicks were plus-17 with him on the floor.<\/p>\n
Brown was asked Monday whether Clarkson\u2019s minutes are set or played by feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s willing to accept the role that most guys wouldn\u2019t accept, even guys younger, and they haven\u2019t proved as much as he\u2019s proven in this league,\u201d Mike Brown said. \u201cThat\u2019s the ultimate team player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarkson responded Tuesday to Brown\u2019s praise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a great compliment, especially he\u2019s been around a lot of guys, a lot of players and been on great teams,\u201d he told reporters.\u201d But I\u2019m just here trying to support the group. We\u2019re here for one goal and that\u2019s to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Hart said Monday that Clarkson could be doing more somewhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s someone that if he was on a different team, he could play 20, 25 minutes every night,\u201d he said. \u201cHe could score double digits, be that spark and microwave off the bench. He was willing to sacrifice and take a smaller role, be a part of something bigger than himself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is Catching Strays, the Daily News\u2019 regular Knicks rundown for the quotes, stats and storylines that didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,288,327,304,177,3357,6,1136,191,3810,3806,1201],"class_list":["post-875336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-basketball","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-josh-hart","tag-knicks","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-mike-brown","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-ty-jerome"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117554656228194961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}