PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Jose Alvarado heard his name cheered time and again Wednesday night in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
As the pro-New York Knicks crowd drowned out the sadness of the Philadelphia 76ers faithful, each 3 New York\u2019s newest guard tossed up was met with louder applause \u2014 one after the other, after the other, after the other.<\/p>\n
Alvarado tied a career high by knocking down eight 3s in 18 minutes of action. He finished the night with a team-high 26 points en route to the Knicks\u2019 49-point victory over Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really, really good for us,\u201d Knicks coach Mike Brown said. \u201cHe ignited us in many different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarado, the New York native whose Madison Square Garden debut with the Knicks on Tuesday night didn\u2019t quite live up to the hype, played all of the hits in the City of Brotherly Love. He even played a few B-sides.<\/p>\n
The feisty guard also won defensive player of the game. He pulled off his patented steal, known as \u201cGrand Theft Alvarado,\u201d in which he sneaks up from behind on a defender and pokes away the ball, whether they know he\u2019s coming or not. He got his hands on several deflections. He was also involved in a dust-up. Knicks center Mitchell Robinson was fouled early trying to shoot a layup by the 76ers\u2019 Trendon Watford. Alvarado didn\u2019t like the foul and got in Watford\u2019s face. The two had to be separated.<\/p>\n
Said teammate Karl Anthony-Towns: \u201cHe was that Jose Alvarado you see on TV all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alvarado was brought to the Knicks at the trade deadline to add some extra ballhandling and point-of-attack defense for the team\u2019s championship push. He was also targeted to bring an energy to the game that the Knicks can sometimes forget at home.<\/p>\n
The guard, who played his high school basketball at Christ the King in Queens, N.Y., spent his entire five-year career with the New Orleans Pelicans before being traded to his hometown team.<\/p>\n
Alvarado\u2019s first game as a Knicks was on Sunday in Boston. It was there that the New York kid talked about what was running through his mind when he learned that he was traded. Yes, he was getting a chance to play for the hometown team. However, New Orleans is the only home he knew as a pro and the first organization to give the undrafted guard a chance in the NBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of mixed emotions when I heard the news,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cIt was great new to come back home. It was exciting. To be in the city I was raised at is a dope feeling. Putting the Knicks jersey on is pretty surreal for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Jose Alvarado heard his name cheered time and again Wednesday night in Philadelphia. As the pro-New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,361,99],"class_list":["post-463487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}