Cameron Payne, once “hated” by his Knicks teammates, comes up in game 1 against Pistons

New York – Jalen Brunson cut the tension.

Shortly after Cameron Payne signed at the New York Knicks last summer, the team gathered for a pickup in his exercise. This was the first time that Payne saw one of the Knicks against her a few months earlier.

He appeared, “not anxious or nervous or something,” he said. But he also knew what was unspoken by this moment.

“I just played you. I just got involved with them,” he recalled in a conversation with The athlete. “It was a little awkwardness.”

Payne was not a public enemy No. 1 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, but for six games in the first season he won the Knicks in the first season. He was Brunson’s personal mosquito. When he prepared for July -Brunson turned to imagine.

The captain stretched out his hand and explained the calm part loudly.

“I hated you,” said Brunson.

Payne laughed. Broken ice cream. Brunson continued.

“But I know you will bring it,” he said. “So I like you with us.”

Today Brunson Payne has to like more than ever.

On Saturday, the two combined for the biggest four and a half minutes of the Knicks season, a 21-0 run in the fourth quarter of their first playoff game as teammates. The drunk brought New York to a 123-112 victory and a 1-0 lead of the first round against the Detroit Piston.

The Knicks, the favorites over the starting piston, were 98-90 with a little more than nine minutes in the regulation. Then the Point Guards catch fire.

Payne sank and-1. Brunson nailed a 3 pointer. Payne fell into a long ball to bind it with 98, received a pass on the right wing of Josh Hart, turned his shoulders aside and beat his always unusual sweater, an elbow that looks like the salt-Bae-Guy has irritated.

When the ball adorned the net, the Piston’s coach JB Bickerstaff signaled for a break, a moment when Payne doesn’t even remember.

If Payne is on a heater, he can go out black. Who can think while pouring over in lighter liquid?

“My mind is getting empty,” he said.

He and Brunson changed buckets. Brunson hit a floater to give the Knick a 100-98 lead. Another 3 from Payne followed.

Together, the duo scored 17 consecutive nine for Payne and eight for Brunson, until hard in a few finger buns to extend the run to 21, and the lead of the Knicks to 111-98 in less than five minutes.

Payne ended the night with 14 points, 11 in the fourth quarter, in 15 minutes in front of the bank.

A game in his career as a Knicks night and a year after New York cursed his name, Payne received his first playoff moment in Madison Square Garden.

“It was hard on the opposing side last year,” said Payne. “It was loud like S – here. But on the other hand it was good.”

This was more than just a hit. From the beginning of the fourth quarter, when he was put back into the game, Payne gave life with Knicks.

Detroit had overcome a half -time deficit to achieve a lead of eight points. When the Pistons guard Dennis Schröder tried to offer the ball, Payne should have a simple passport to start the time as if he was doing jumping jacks. The same tricks that the Knicks annoyed in the last spring revived them on Saturday. Detroit could not throw in the ball and succumbed to an injury of five seconds. Knicks Center Karl-Anthony Towns achieved the following property.

Payne chased Sagitters Malik Beasley, who led the NBA in 3-point brands during the regular season, around the screens you jour recently. Twenty -one points in four and a half minutes started with stops. During this route, the pistons glued all 10 shots and turned them around twice. The Knicks pushed the pace.

“Two point guards have injected a certain speed of the game,” said head coach Tom Thibodeau.

Payne will drive, regardless of whether the clock is running or pausing.

After tied up the game at 98, he galloped on the Knicks bank, owned in a constant screeching and looked up at the stands where his mother was sitting – no, Stand. The Payne family does not refuse, not for Huddles during the fourth quarter of tie games and not in the crowd.

The two shouted each other and swiveled with their arms.

“Cam always has the energy, regardless of who we play where we play, when we play,” said Brunson. “He has the energy when we go to the arena and it shows. Even if the ball doesn’t jump the way it wants, it still has the energy.”

The Payne path is endurance.

As a former lottery election, he was out of the NBA six years ago and played professionally in China without returning to the league. But he captured the Phoenix Suns in 2020 and has not let go since then.

He survives from mood.

As a rookie, he did not estimate his overall rating in the NBA 2K16 video game. A 72 -class class took the 242nd place in the NBA. So Payne solved the problem himself. He founded a new player that the new player Cameron Payne called Cameron Payne, all sliders moved to 99 (the highest rating) and played a season in which two cam Paynes took place and refused to recognize the smaller avatar.

“I have to give myself some love,” Payne insisted with a smile.

He is a cough. A pinball would be dizzying to re -enact its pregame routine. Sometimes this season he fell out of favor with Thibodeau. One night he would fall 18 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves during a 4-minute time of 17 seconds. The closing of the Spoty Shot could violate the Knicks.

Payne is a streaking shooter, but a cold route does not stop him from throwing it up.

Questions arose whether he would be part of the playoff rotation if you consider that Thibodeau could have cut his group of regular guests to seven or eight. He went with nine boys.

Payne was the last of these nine who entered game 1. According to his standards, it was patient and waited for impressive seven seconds after the integration to publish his first 3 pointer of the night. It went into it, just like all of these recordings that climbed when it was most important.

“It feels good. This time everyone is on my side,” said Payne. “I’m not the most hated at the moment. It’s fun.”

(Top photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)