Jose Alvarado hits eight 3s as Knicks embarrass 76ers in 49-point victory

Jose Alvarado brought the ball up the floor, threw an entry pass to Karl-Anthony Towns, then clipped Towns’ right shoulder to the rim. Towns found Alvarado wide open for what could have been an easy game.

But what followed was a blur of reads and reversals that never let the ball stick. Towns hit Alvarado on a back cut. Alvarado drew the defense, missed a layup and kicked it out to Mohamed Diawara. Diawara threw it towards Mikal Bridges. Bridges flipped him once more, returning to the architect of possession. Alvarado — moved, feet planted — buried his fifth three of the night barely a minute into the fourth quarter of the Knicks’ 138-89 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday.

It didn’t stop there.

Alvarado coughed up the ball on a drive moments later, only to step back, strip Sixers center Adem Bona and move to the corner. The ball found him. Splash. Triple No. 6.

“It’s crazy. I’m just getting in rhythm with the system, the plays and the coaching staff,” Alvarado said after the game. “But they do a great job of making it super easy and today it went the way I wanted it to. Shots were thrown.”

The sequence was chaotic but connected. And it was a snapshot of everything that works when these Knicks are at their best.

Because when the Knicks move the ball and turn defense into offense — when they trust the pass more than the dribble — they look like the NBA Cup champions that they are. Alvarado’s coming-out party at the Wells Fargo Center embodied all the reasons the front office targeted him at the deadline.

The Brooklyn Boy is back home, where he belongs.

The Knicks outscored the 76ers by 35 points in Alvarado’s 19 minutes on the floor. He finished with 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field to go with five steals on the night.

“I always thought I was a great shooter, a good shooter. Obviously it’s getting better,” he said in his final interview. “I’m going to continue to get better and knock down shots.”

New York bounced back from its 137-134 overtime loss to the 14-win Indiana Pacers on Tuesday with a 49-point blowout victory in Philadelphia against the 76ers on Wednesday.

The Sixers were without All-Star center Joel Embiid (right knee management) and starting power forward Paul George (25-game suspension), and the Knicks pounded the paint against Philadelphia’s big backups.

Bridges finished with 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field after scoring 12 points in the opening period. Towns added 21 points, 11 rebounds and five assists on 8-of-13 shooting from the field, and Josh Hart flirted with a triple-double (six points, seven rebounds, nine assists) in 29 minutes of action.

The Knicks had 72 points from their bench on Wednesday.

“We knew it was an important game for us in the standings, so we had to come back,” Alvarado said. “Yesterday’s game didn’t go our way, but we had to come back and get the win today.”

The Knicks scored 72 points in the first half and had 104 by the end of the third quarter. This performance marked their 15th half of the season with 70 points.

Tyrese Maxey scored 32 points on 9-of-21 shooting from the field, but no other Sixers player scored more than VJ Edgecombe, who needed 16 shots to get 14 points and missed all five of his attempts from downtown on Wednesday.

After allowing the Pacers to make 16 threes in the first three quarters of their loss Tuesday, the Knicks held the 76ers to just 6-of-32 shooting from downtown.

Jalen Brunson finished with just eight points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field to go with four assists, but he was plus-21 in 30 minutes from the floor. Rookie Diawara had 14 points, five rebounds and two assists on 4-of-8 shooting from behind the bench. Mitchell Robinson, who played the game before Tuesday’s rematch against the Pacers, turned the game around with four blocks in 15 minutes.

The bounce-back victory evened the ladder heading into the 2026 NBA All-Star break after the Knicks lost two of their last three games, including a 37-point bombing in Detroit against the top-seeded Pistons.

The Knicks enter the break winners of 11 of their last 13 games.

They will face the top-seeded Pistons again in the 2026 All-Star, followed by a date with Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets immediately after.