ATLANTA — When he arrived at the Las Vegas Summer League as a rookie, Tyler Kolek knew he had a lot to learn and a long way to go to be the sort of player he was at Marquette. He was a second-round pick with something to prove.
But one thing he had on arrival was confidence and a knowledge that he was not what the draft experts thought he could be. A point guard with a tough edge, he was pigeonholed as a T.J. McConnell-type prospect — and he put that to bed right away.
“I think it’s a little lazy,” Kolek said at the time. Asked if he saw something in common with the scrappy Indiana Pacers veteran, he said, “We don’t need to say it” before pointing out a different comp for himself.
Jalen Brunson.
“His game, I feel like that’s a little closer to what I like to do than T.J. McConnell,” Kolek said. “Play at my own pace, getting in the paint, getting guys involved.”
Maybe it’s worth revisiting that idea now in his second season.
Don’t get this twisted. Brunson has gone from the second round to a top-10 player in the NBA. He’s deserving of the MVP talk that Knicks coach Mike Brown has pushed hard and the fans chant not just at Madison Square Garden but at arenas across the league.
Kolek has ascended from the player who fans would chant for at the end of a blowout (getting ”DNP-Coach’s Decisions” even this season) to one who has his name chanted because of his late-game heroics.
And it’s those late-game heroics — whether it was in the NBA Cup final against San Antonio or the Christmas Day performance against Cleveland — that bring up a common denominator.
In the fourth quarter Thursday, Kolek not only scored 11 of his 16 points but came up with huge defensive plays and the playmaking to help open opportunities for Brunson. Between them, they shot 6-for-7 from three-point range in the quarter.
Brunson is the reigning NBA Clutch Player of the Year and might be on his way to a repeat performance. He scored 13 fourth-quarter points Thursday and hit shots, as usual, that just defied logic. But Kolek did, too.
After one of his three-pointers in the fourth quarter, they headed to the bench for a timeout and Kolek was emotional, excitedly high-fiving teammates and roaring. He got to Brunson, who offered a high-five but did it without a hint of emotion. He’s been there before.
“Just trying to change the game,” Kolek said. “When it started 19-to-whatever, I looked at Jordan [Clarkson] and I said, ‘Change the game.’ That’s what I always say. Cam Payne actually taught me that last year. Whenever you go in the game, change the game. Do something different and make the game flow differently.”
There is a toughness to both players, a fearlessness, and it’s OK that they are on different levels. Brunson is who he is and Kolek is having a moment, helping to provide the playmaking the Knicks have been searching for in a backup point guard, even with no guarantees that his opportunities will remain when Deuce McBride and Landry Shamet return from injuries.
The point is the Knicks need every one of these hard-nosed players that they can get. Brunson and Josh Hart have it. Sometimes others do and sometimes they don’t. Talent they have, but it was Miami’s Erik Spoelstra who spoke recently about the Knicks’ collective will to win. If the Knicks can have it in their top player and whatever Kolek is — sixth man, eighth man — it flows up and down the roster and is contagious.
They won’t have Hart on Saturday against the Hawks; he’s sidelined with a sprained right ankle. McBride was upgraded to questionable after missing the last seven games with a sprained ankle. But the Knicks seem to find someone to step up every time they need it.
“It’s great,” said Kolek, who has averaged 12.0 points, 6.6 assists and 5.2 rebounds in 23.8 minutes in the past five games after recording 14 points, five assists and five rebounds in the NBA Cup final. “It kind of reminds me before I was on the team, those fourth quarters they were down, I was watching those games with Jalen and Donte [DiVincenzo] and all those guys. They just had that fight to them, that toughness to them. It’s showing a little bit on this team.”
“With Tyler, I think it’s one of those things where you either have confidence or you don’t,” Karl-Anthony Towns said. “I think with all the work that he has put in, his confidence has grown in the league. You see people’s confidence in this league get stripped. With Tyler, his confidence is growing. It’s a test to his mental strength, his mental fortitude and the work he puts in.”
The comeback wins are showing a hint of that now. Sometimes it’s just Brunson dragging them to the finish line on his shoulders. But if it’s toughness and belief that they need, Kolek has that.
“He’s over the top with his toughness,” Brown said. “When we were in Minnesota at halftime, he was 3-for-10 from the floor. I went at him in front of the whole group, and I can’t say everything that I said, but in a nutshell I said, ‘You’ve taken 10 shots, the second most on this team, and you only made three, and three or four of those shots were air balls. If you’re going to take that many shots, you’ve got to make some.’
“So he goes 6-for-12 in the second half, he’s got 11 rebounds for the game and eight assists. I was hot. He walks by me and he looks me in my eye and he goes, ‘I made shots.’ And he walked off. Made me smile inside, like, ‘You little . . . ‘ ”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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