State of Emergency in the Big Apple! Knicks All-Stars Break Their Silence on the Team’s Turmoil

The New York Knicks are have the best kind of All-Star break: one they wish didn’t have to endure.

New York enters the hiatus as winners of all but two of their last 11 and firmly entrenched within the Eastern Conference’s top three. At 36-18, they’re a season-best 18 games over .500 and some of their recent wins come over teams likewise stationed in the automatic playoff spots at the All-Star landmark.

But Jalen Brunson, one of the Knicks on his way to San Francisco for the All-Star festivities, is far from satisfied if his comments after Wednesday’s thrilling victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.

“We haven’t really accomplished anything,” Brunson bluntly declared in video from SNY. “We have a long way to go to continue to where we want to go. But it’s all about taking one day at a time. Right now it’s about getting rest and recharge and come back ready to go.”

Despite picking up some major, memorable victories during his time in New York, Brunson has been long vocal about ending the lengthy championship drought plaguing the Knicks, currently stationed at over five decades. Brunson’s work with fellow Bay Area invitee Karl-Anthony Towns has given Manhattan what many believe is their most legitimate championship case in quite some time.

Towns himself is a little more optimistic on the state of the Knicks at the break, crediting their chemistry for their success in his first metropoltian tour.

“[Teammates] are the reason we’ve been able to have the success,” Towns said. “It’s an everyday professionalism, the character I talk about in this locker room, and the sacrifice that everyone’s willing to do to find a way to win every night for the city. I hope the fans appreciate it. Every night, we’re going out there and we’re giving our best to bring a win back home … and give the fans something to cheer about.”

Both Brunson and Towns have certainly filled their roles in that final point: Brunson saved the Knicks from pre-All-Star embarrassment with a game-winning double with 11 seconds remaining in an overtime period necessitated by an Atlanta Hawks comeback from six points down in the last 10 seconds of regulation. Towns, on the other hand, entered metropolitan royalty this week with back-to-back games with at least 40 points, becoming just the fifth New Yorker to pull off the feat, joining Brunson, Carmelo Anthony, Patrick Ewing and Bernard King,

Brunson and Towns will both be in the starting lineup for Sunday’s All-Star Game (8 p.m. ET, TNT), albeit on different teams. It’s the first time that the Knicks have had multiple men in an All-Star Game’s opening five since 1975 when Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Earl “The Pearl” Monroe repped the group in Phoenix’s exhibition. Frazier scored 30 points en route to MVP honors in a 108-102 win for the Eastern Conference.