Why Knicks game was delayed by bent rim that was actually straight

Saturday’s Knicks victory was delayed for about 10 minutes because of a bent rim that was actually straight.Apparently Mikal Bridges jump-started an early fourth quarter investigation by telling the officials the rim was askew as he was taking free throws.The thought was that a previous dunk from OG Anunoby had shifted the metal circle.But after an MSG worker climbed a ladder and tested the alignment with a level-line tool, the rim was determined to be regulation.“[Mikal] was the only one who thought it was crooked,” Josh Hart said jokingly.

“He has bad vision anyway so I think that’s part of it.”It didn’t impact the Knicks, who cruised to a 143-120 victory.Bridges also hit his free throw immediately after the delay.“They asked us if we wanted to warm up and the players felt like they were ready to go so [we didn’t have a warmup after the delay],” Tom Thibodeau said.

“That’s an NBA game.Stay focused.

… It looked like there may have been a dunk that knocked it off a little bit.And it seemed like it was down a little.

But when they hung on it a little bit and it looked like it snapped back and it looked like it was fine.Stuff happens, you just deal with it.”The Knicks got a boost from their bench against the Kings, specifically from Landry Shamet’s shooting and Precious Achiuwa’s defense.Shamet, who was recently reintegrated into the rotation, knocked down nine points on three treys — his highest scoring output of the season.Achiuwa collected five rebounds, two steals and a block in just 18 minutes.

Most impressively, the Knicks outscored the Kings by 27 points with Achiuwa on the court.“His quickness is different and he actually guarded DeMar [DeRozan] on some possessions and did a really good job on him,” Thibodeau said.“But you can put him on the pick-and-roll, he can do two things at once.

He can be up on the ball and still get back to his man.And he had a big block.

He reacts quickly to the ball.And I think that was...