‘Nova Knicks’ Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges excel in victory over shorthanded Sixers

Josh Hart pirouetted as he swiped the ball from Guerschon Yabusele, then floated the pass to Mikal Bridges for the alley-oop slam, then screamed as Bridges hung on the rim with one hand.

That was the exclamation point on a Wednesday night when the ‘Nova Knicks’ fingerprints were all over a 125-119 overtime victory over the shorthanded 76ers at the Wells Fargo Center.

Bridges scored 16 of his 23 points in the first half, helping New York race out to a 16-point advantage. Hart made his quintessential high-energy impact all over the floor, with 10 points, 17 rebounds, 12 assists, and four steals for his fifth triple-double of the season. And All-Star guard Jalen Brunson finished with an efficient 38 points — and rebounded from a turnover that led to the Sixers’ tying bucket in the final seconds of regulation by scoring half of his team’s 16 overtime points.

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“Just staying strong, staying resilient, and just find a way to win,” Bridges said.

The Knicks needed that production from those three players without All-Star big man Karl-Anthony Towns, who missed the game with a thumb injury (yet wore an Eagles sweatshirt on the bench during the game’s first half). It also was a positive start to the second half of the regular season for the Knicks, who at 27-15 entered Thursday sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference playoff standings but had lost five of their previous seven games.

The synergy between those former Villanova teammates — who added former Sixers draft pick Bridges in a blockbuster trade last summer — was on display early, when Hart pushed the ball in transition before dishing to Brunson, who then found Bridges for a corner three-pointer. Bridges, whose shot form was heavily criticized early in the season, went 4-of-7 from long range before halftime — including one make that gave the Knicks a 41-25 lead early in the second quarter.

Hart, meanwhile, joked that playing without Towns in the middle meant “there’s no one to steal my rebounds.” He reached double figures in that statistical category by the end of the third quarter, and notched his 10th assist on a Miles McBride three-pointer that put the Knicks up 96-89 with less than eight minutes to go in regulation. Hart then completed his triple-double by converting a steal into a breakaway dunk that gave New York a 104-102 advantage with 2 minutes, 15 seconds remaining in the fourth, before slinging a pass to OG Anunoby for a corner three-pointer on the next possession.

“What can you say about Josh?” said Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau. “He willed that game. The hustle plays, they saved the game for us.”

Brunson added what Thibodeau called “incredible” shot-making, as part of another season that will surely come with All-Star distinction and MVP chatter. He slithered into the lane with the ball in his hands to score and distribute, even when bumped. He blended floaters, up-and-under layups and three-point shots — plus a wild, off-balance jumper just before the third-quarter buzzer — to finish 14 of 22 from the floor, 3 of 6 from beyond the arc, and 7 of 9 from the foul line.

Brunson, though, was frustrated with a “careless” turnover with his team up two points with 7.1 seconds remaining in regulation. Sixers’ All-Star guard (and improved defender) Tyrese Maxey poked the ball away, then got a goaltending call on a layup attempt at the other end of the floor.

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Yet when the Sixers went into drop defensive coverage in overtime’s first minute, Brunson pulled up for a three-pointer that extended the Knicks’ advantage to 114-109. On New York’s next possession, when perimeter standout Paul George crowded Brunson’s space, the guard “had to get up there” to draw the contact on another beyond-the-arc attempt and then sank all three free throws. About a minute later, Brunson lured Yabusele into a foul and hit two more free throws.

When Brunson stepped to the line, he received “M-V-P!” chants from the Knicks fans who again flooded the Wells Fargo Center.

“I’ve got to know my surroundings and shouldn’t have put my team in that position [to go to overtime],” Brunson said. “But I’m just happy we stayed poised in [overtime] and came away with the win.”

Those ‘Nova Knicks will see another familiar face on Friday, when fellow former Wildcat-turned-Knick Donte DiVincenzo and the Minnesota Timberwolves visit Madison Square Garden for their first regular-season meeting since the late-offseason trade to acquire Towns.

A preseason matchup between those teams turned spicy, when DiVincenzo and Brunson’s father, Knicks assistant coach Rick Brunson, got in a verbal spat. The elder Brunson said on Jalen’s Roommates podcast in November that he and DiVincenzo had moved past the ordeal. When asked late Wednesday if it will be “cool” to play against DiVincenzo and fellow former teammate Julius Randle, Jalen responded with “Always a pleasure.”

So is recording another win in the city where they became college stars.

“We’re so close in the locker room, so it don’t really matter when someone [like Towns] goes down,” Bridges said. “… We all like each other in here, so it makes it easy.”