New York’s Jalen Brunson defends Cleveland’s Caris LeVert in the first half Tuesday night at New York. Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

NEW YORK — Julius Randle had 36 points and 13 rebounds, and his eighth 3-pointer snapped a tie with 2:07 left as the New York Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-103 on Tuesday night.

Donovan Mitchell had 24 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in his return from a three-game absence with a left groin strain. But he had his last three shots blocked and was slow to get up after falling to the ground in an effort to save the Cavaliers’ final possession.

RJ Barrett added 16 points and Jalen Brunson had 14 for the Knicks, who snapped a four-game losing streak.

Jarrett Allen had 24 points and 12 rebounds for Cleveland, and Darius Garland added 22 points and six assists.

The Knicks were ahead by 11 with under eight minutes remaining before Mitchell made a 3-pointer, stole the ball from Randle and fed Isaac Okoro for a three-point play, and then made another 3 for nine straight Cleveland points in barely a minute to trim it to 93-91.

Evan Mobley’s basket tied it with 2 1/2 minutes to play before Randle answered with his 3 on the other end. Cleveland had two chances to tie or cut it to one, but Mitchell was blocked first by Barrett and then by Isaiah Hartenstein on the next possession.

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Brunson then made two free throws for a five-point lead but Garland had a three-point play that trimmed it to 105-103. The Cavs got the ball back after a shot-clock violation and Mitchell drove into the lane but was stopped again by Hartenstein. Mitchell went to the ground and the Cavs batted the ball back out to Evan Mobley, whose jumper missed.

PACERS 116, BULLS 110: Myles Turner and Bennedict Mathurin each scored 26 points and Mathurin’s short, go-ahead basket with 29.1 seconds left helped Indiana close out a rally from 21 points down to beat visiting Chicago.

Indiana snapped a season-worst seven-game losing streak to stay ahead of 10th-place Chicago in the Eastern Conference. The Pacers played again without injured point guard Tyrese Haliburton and this time without his replacement, Andrew Nembhard, who was sick.

DeMar DeRozan scored 33 points to lead the Bulls and Nikola Vucevic added 20 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Chicago’s three-game winning streak came to an end and Vucevic’s streak of 11 consecutive double-doubles also ended.

NOTES

ALL-STAR GAME: The NBA All-Star Game is Feb. 19. And nobody will know the All-Star rosters until that night.

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Not even the players themselves.

The team captains – probably LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and either Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo or Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant – will make their picks in a live, televised pregame segment shortly before the game begins in Salt Lake City.

The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced the format change on Tuesday night.

This will be the sixth time that the league has used the format where captains choose their teams, but in each of the first five instances the rosters were selected several days before the game.

The captains and starters will be announced on Thursday.

PELICANS: Zion Williamson is expected to be out at least two more weeks following a recent re-evaluation of his right hamstring injury, the Pelicans said.

Williamson appears to be “healing as expected” from the Jan. 2 injury and “making good progress with his recovery,” the club said, but needs to continue strengthening his hamstring and gradually progress to more movement.

He’d missed 10 games heading into Tuesday night’s contest against Denver for the Pelicans, who’ve lost four straight and have gone 3-7 without him.

In the 29 games Williamson has played, he’s averaged 26 points, seven rebounds, and 4.6 assists – and New Orleans is 17-12.


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