NBA: Miami Heat at New York Knicks

It’s hard to become the first to ever do something in the Knicks long and storied history, but Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns did just that on Tuesday night against the Mavericks:

Towns and Hart became the first Knicks teammates to get triple-doubles in the same game during a comfortable home win against the shorthanded Mavericks (no Anthony Davis on the second night of a back-to-back).

Teammates getting triple-doubles has only happened 16 times in the history of the NBA — and twice this season by Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Russell Westbrook.

“I’m just happy that Josh gets stats on the sheet that show the impact he’s making on the game,” Towns said of setting Knicks history. “There’s much more stats that don’t show up on the stat sheet that he does for our team.”

The Knicks are now 5-4 since Jalen Brunson went down with a sprained ankle and still have a solid grip on the No. 3 seed with 11 to play (the red-hot Pacers are three games back). New York does have a tougher schedule than Indiana down the stretch, including two games against the Cavaliers, but should be able to hold on. Brunson is doing controlled work, and his status will be updated in the coming days, but the expectation has been that he would return in late March or early April.