Isaiah Hartenstein always considered himself a capable starter.
Now he's trying to show it to others.
The center again dominated in the paint, grabbing a career-high 20 rebounds and tying a career-high with five blocks in the Knicks' 116-100 win over the Bulls at The Garden on Wednesday night. was recorded.
The German-American faced Chicago's Andre Drummond.
“[I’m showing that] I can play this role. That's the biggest thing,” Hartenstein said. “I always had confidence that I could really play, but I had never actually been in that situation.
“Before, I was finishing games, but now I'm consistently playing over 30 minutes. I feel like I can continue to build on that.”
Hartenstein adopted this extended role after an injury to Mitchell Robinson, who underwent ankle surgery, but Robinson could be out for the season.
After a rough start that included a sharp decline in his inside defense, Hartenstein appears to have found his groove.
In his last game, a win over the Timberwolves, he recorded three blocks, including two highlight rejections of center Rudy Gobert.
“Honestly, I'm impressed with the way he protects the rim,” Randle said. “We're used to Mitch covering up our mistakes when he loses off the dribble. But he's a monster doing it right now. And getting 20 rebounds against Drummond… It's not easy. That's why he was great.”
Wednesday's late snitch can thank a Hollywood strike.
Due to the writers' and actors' strike, ABC was starved of original programming, so the network planned to air one additional NBA game every Wednesday in January at 8:30 p.m., starting with Knicks vs. Bulls.
This will replace one of two games on ESPN that normally end an hour earlier on Wednesdays.
This was the Knicks' last home game of the season, but MSG has two more games scheduled for the weekend at 8:30 p.m., against the Lakers on February 3rd and against the Celtics on February 24th.
Both of these games will also be aired on ABC.
Counting Wednesday, the Knicks have 28 home games remaining, tied with the Hawks for the most in the NBA.
They recently added home games to their schedule after getting burned out on in-season tournaments. Commissioner Adam Silver's tournament schedule left the Knicks with just 40 home games, including just four of 10 games against the Bucks and Celtics.
So the NBA moved the February 26th game against the Pistons from Detroit to New York. According to Forbes, the Knicks earned $154 million in gate revenue last season.
The Pistons, on the other hand, only made $46 million.
“I don't know what happened in that. I think it was a byproduct of the in-season tournament and then the imbalance in the schedule,” said Tom Thibodeau. “We knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to be perfect, but I think they just tweaked it. They understood that this was the way to balance it. So it came more from the league. I think it's a thing.”
Malachi Flynn was yet to make his Knicks debut.
The reserve point guard, who was part of the squad sent from Toronto, was unable to practice and arrived with a “strained ankle,” Thibodeau said before Wednesday's game.
Flynn played six minutes for the Raptors on Saturday and was traded the next day.
He is expected to compete for minutes with Miles McBride as Jalen Brunson's backup, but McBride, who struggled on Wednesday, was given the first crack at the opportunity.
“Be prepared,” Thibodeau said. “Let's see how it plays out.”
Another battle is for backup frontcourt time between Jericho Sims and rookie Precious Achiuwa.
Entering Wednesday, Sims had not played since spraining his ankle on Dec. 18, although he was healthy and available for the previous two games.
