Cameron Payne, once ‘hated’ by his Knicks teammates, comes up big in Game 1 vs. Pistons

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NEW YORK — Jalen Brunson cut the tension.

Not long after Cameron Payne signed with the New York Knicks last summer, the team gathered for a pickup run at its practice facility. This was Payne’s first time seeing any of the Knicks since a playoff battle against them a couple of months earlier.

He showed up “not scared or nervous or anything,” he said. But he also knew what was, until this moment, unspoken.

“I just played y’all. I just got into it with y’all,” he recalled in a conversation with The Athletic. “It was a little bit of awkwardness.”

Payne wasn’t public enemy No. 1 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, but for six games during last season’s first round, a bout New York eventually won, he pestered the Knicks. He was Brunson’s personal mosquito. So, as he got ready for the July scrimmage, Brunson approached to introduce himself.

The captain stuck out his hand and declared the quiet part out loud.

“I f—ing hated you,” Brunson deadpanned.

Payne laughed. Ice broke. Brunson continued.

“But I know you’re gonna bring it,” he said. “So, I like you with us.”

Today, Brunson must like Payne more than ever.

On Saturday, the two combined for the greatest four-and-a-half minutes of the Knicks’ season, a 21-0 run during the fourth quarter of their first playoff match as teammates. The throttling carried New York to a 123-112 victory and 1-0 first-round series lead over the Detroit Pistons.

The Knicks, the favorites over the upstart Pistons, trailed 98-90 with just over nine minutes remaining in regulation. That’s when the point guards caught fire.

Payne sunk an and-1. Brunson nailed a 3-pointer. Payne dropped in a long ball of his own to tie it at 98, receiving a pass on the right wing from Josh Hart, spinning his shoulders to the side and flinging up his always unusual jumper, an elbow-straining one that looks like if the Salt Bae guy hooped.

As the ball graced the net, Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff signaled for a timeout, a moment Payne may not even remember.

When Payne is on a heater, he can black out. “My mind goes blank,” he said. Who can think while doused in lighter fluid?

He and Brunson alternated buckets. Brunson hit a floater to give the Knicks a 100-98 lead. Another 3 from Payne followed.

The duo combined to score 17 consecutive points — nine for Payne and eight for Brunson — until Hart laid in a couple of finger rolls to extend the run to 21 and the Knicks’ lead to 111-98 with under five minutes to go.

Payne finished the night with 14 points, 11 in the fourth quarter, in 15 minutes off the bench.

One game into his Knicks postseason career and one year after New Yorkers cursed his name, Payne has tallied his first playoff moment at Madison Square Garden.

“On the opposing side last year, it was tough,” Payne said. “It was loud as s— in here. But being on the flip side of it, it felt good.”

This was more than just a scoring binge. From the onset of the fourth quarter, when he subbed back into the game, Payne lent the Knicks life.

Detroit had overcome a halftime deficit to grab an eight-point lead. As Pistons guard Dennis Schröder tried to inbound the ball, a should-have-been easy pass to begin the period, Payne leapt up and down as if he were doing jumping jacks. The same tricks that peeved the Knicks last spring invigorated them Saturday. Detroit couldn’t throw the ball in and succumbed to a five-second violation; Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns scored on the ensuing possession.

Payne chased sharpshooter Malik Beasley, the man who led the NBA in 3-point makes during the regular season, around screens du jour throughout the final period. Twenty-one points in four-and-a-half minutes started with stops. The Pistons clanked all 10 of their shots during that stretch and turned it over twice. The Knicks pushed the pace.

“Two point guards together injected some speed to the game,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said.

Payne will race, whether the clock is running or paused.

After tying the game at 98, he galloped to the Knicks’ bench, possessed in a constant screech, and looked up into the stands, where his mother was sitting — nay, standing. The Payne family does not recline, not for huddles during the fourth quarters of tie games and not in the crowd.

The two shouted to each other, waving their arms in jubilee.

“Cam always has the energy, regardless of who we’re playing, where we’re playing, what time we’re playing,” Brunson said. “He has the energy when we walk into the arena, and it shows. Even if the ball is not bouncing the way he wants to, he still has the energy.”

The Payne way is persistence.

A former lottery pick, he found himself out of the NBA six years ago, playing professionally in China without any promise of making it back to the league. But he latched on with the Phoenix Suns in 2020 and hasn’t let go since.

He survives on vibes.

As a rookie, he didn’t appreciate his overall rating in the video game, NBA 2K16. A 72 grade ranked 242nd in the NBA. So Payne solved the problem himself. He created a new player, named the new player Cameron Payne, moved all the sliders up to 99 (the highest rating) and played a season that technically had two Cam Paynes, refusing to acknowledge the lesser avatar.

“I gotta give myself some love,” Payne insisted through a smile.

He is a hustler. A pinball would get dizzy reenacting his pregame routine. At times this season, he fell out of favor with Thibodeau. On one night, he’d drop 18 points during a 4-minute, 17-second span against the Minnesota Timberwolves. On the next, spotty shot selection could hurt the Knicks.

Payne is a streaky shooter, but a cold stretch doesn’t deter him from throwing them up.

Questions arose heading into this series about if he would be part of the playoff rotation, considering Thibodeau could have sliced his group of regulars to seven or eight. He went with nine guys.

Payne was the last of those nine to enter Game 1. By his standards, he was patient, waiting an impressive seven seconds after subbing in to release his first 3-pointer of the night. It went in, as did all those shots that went up when it mattered most.

“It feels good. Everybody’s on my side this time,” Payne said. “I ain’t the most hated right now. It’s fun.”

(Top photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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