Australia’s Josh Giddey became the first player in NBA history to record a triple-double in each of his first three games at the hallowed Madison Square Garden as his late-season surge continued Monday.
Giddey tallied 16 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists in 31 minutes for his Oklahoma City Thunder in a rollercoaster 113-112 win over the New York Knicks at the famous venue.
Down by ten points after three quarters, a surge to open the final quarter took the Thunder past the Knicks and up by as many as eight points.
The pair traded the lead time and again with the game going down to the wire, only for Giddey to ice the game with an inbound assist for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to score with 2.1 seconds remaining.
New York’s Jalen Brunson – who had put the Knicks in the lead with 4.1 to go was controversially denied a foul on that shot – threw up a potential game-winner as the clock ticked down but it bounced short off the rim.
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The win means the Thunder move solo top of the Western Conference with a 52-22 record and secure their berth in the playoffs, returning to the NBA post-season after a three-year absence.
Giddey’s 10th career triple double also makes him just the second OKC player to reach that mark, behind Russell Westbrook’s 138.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returned for the Thunder after a quad contusion saw him ruled out of their last two games, and managed 19 points on 7-of-16 shooting, while Jalen Williams led the way with 33 points on efficient 14-of-18 shooting to go with 8 assists.
Speaking of his teammates, Gilgeous-Alexander said: “It won us the game. Clearly I didn’t have my best night but that’s what the team is for. They’ve had my back all season, they had my back again tonight.
We just came in here and did our job, everyone stuck to the script and we got our W.”
Jalen Brunson had 30 points and 7 assists for the Knicks, while Miles McBride had 19 and Isaiah Hartenson 17 to go with 15 rebounds.
But the Knicks shot just 41.3% from the floor and 30.2% from deep.
Since the NBA All-Star break, Giddey has stepped up in a big way for the Thunder.
‘How?! How did he do that?!’ | 00:35
In 53 games before the break, Giddey averaged 11.5 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game while shooting 44.7% from the floor and 32.5% from beyond the arc – well below his averages from his first two seasons.
That was largely due to struggling to fit into a new role as an offensive contributor rather than chief playmaker.
But since then, he’s improved across the board – igniting a late-season spark for the Thunder.
And in his last five games specifically, he’s averaged 22.8 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 7.2 rebounds a game, shooting 63.9% from the floor and 52.2% from three-point range.