Winners and Losers From Knicks' Three-Game Winning Streak

After an 0-3 start, the New York Knicks answered with their first three-game winning streak of the season.

They beat Brooklyn 103-90 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 2, crushed Chicago 135-105 at home on Nov. 4 and won 109-97 at Cleveland on Nov. 7, which pushed them to 5-4 and over .500 for the first time this season.

The Knicks outscored those three opponents by 55 points, and the box scores show pretty clearly who is carrying this team right now.

Point guard Jalen Brunson is the easy first pick after he scored 83 points in the three games on 28-of-58 shooting, and he had 19 assists against just two turnovers, which is the number I like most.

In Cleveland he scored 18 points in a span of four minutes and nine seconds in the second quarter, and he finished that night with 31.

Even so, Brunson was not ready to call the team fixed after the win in Cleveland.

"Obviously, bounced back from our start, but just going to try to do our best to not be complacent. Continue to get better every single day," Brunson said, per the New York Post.

Center Karl-Anthony Towns is right behind him after averaging 19.0 points and 13.7 rebounds in the streak, shot 20-of-37 from the field and had 29 points and 13 rebounds in Cleveland.

He has also talked about defending the title, and he has played like it.

My sneaky winner is center Andre Drummond.

He grabbed 26 rebounds in about 40 total minutes, 10 of them on the offensive glass, and New York was plus-16 with him on the floor.

Backup bigs do not get much attention, but the Knicks had 44 offensive rebounds to their opponents' 37 in the streak, and Drummond was a big part of that.

Wing Mikal Bridges still has not found his shot.

He scored 22 points in the three games on 8-of-25 shooting and went 2-of-10 from three, and that came after his role had already shrunk in the first two weeks.

The team winning around him is good news, but it also makes his slump easier to notice.

Guard Josh Hart lands here for a different reason, since he was great in the Brooklyn win with eight points, six rebounds, seven assists and three steals, but he missed the next two games with right ankle soreness.

Guard Landry Shamet started both and the Knicks won them by a combined 42 points.

Hart has talked about how much depth this team has, and the bench just proved him right while he sat.

I would not read the Hart part as a knock on him, because this team needs his rebounding and defense, and he was listed as day-to-day as of Monday.

The bigger takeaway is that Brunson and Towns are playing at a high level and the bench is giving real minutes.

The Knicks host Milwaukee on Nov. 10 and Cleveland on Nov. 11, then visit Indiana on Nov. 13, and how they handle that stretch will show whether this run was real.