Mitchell Robinson already had fouled out when Taj Gibson additionally was assessed his sixth foul with three minutes remaining Tuesday night time on the Backyard.
Nearly instantly, the house crowd started loudly chanting Obi Toppin’s first identify.
Boos rapidly rained down, nonetheless, when Tom Thibodeau as an alternative referred to as for Alec Burks to come back off the bench, basically selecting to make use of a lineup of 4 guards and wing gamers — Burks, Kemba Walker, Evan Fournier and RJ Barrett — round energy ahead Julius Randle.
Such has been the slide again to the periphery in current video games for Toppin since he logged a career-high 45 minutes — and matched a season-best with 19 factors — with Randle out of the lineup on Jan. 2 in Toronto.
The 2020 lottery decide has averaged simply 11.3 minutes over his previous eight appearances, together with simply 9 in Thursday’s late-developing loss to the Timberwolves.
The hometown crowd had erupted when Toppin snared an offense rebound of Barrett’s missed 3-point try for a put-back bucket within the second quarter. The second-year ahead additionally sank two free throws in seven minutes earlier than halftime, however these marked his solely 4 factors for the sport.
The Brooklyn native’s stint within the second half was even shorter, taking part in solely the primary 1:53 of the fourth quarter earlier than Randle got here again following a quick relaxation.
The 23-year-old Toppin didn’t get off the bench thereafter, with Thibodeau opting to have Burks on the courtroom within the closing minutes as an alternative of Toppin or one other massive physique, resembling rookie middle Jericho Sims.
Thibodeau’s small-ball alignment didn’t work at both finish of the ground down the stretch of the giveaway loss, with Randle fouling Minnesota massive man Karl-Anthony Cities for a go-ahead drive and free-throw conversion with 29.3 seconds remaining.
“Julius stepped in and performed middle, so subsequent man in, get the job executed,” Thibodeau stated after the sport. “It’s a hard-fought sport. We didn’t get it executed down the stretch.”
Certainly, the Knicks additionally didn’t join on any field-goal makes an attempt over the ultimate 3:41 whereas committing three turnovers — two by Barrett and one by Fournier — within the closing two minutes. Randle additionally missed one among two free throws with an opportunity to tie the rating 5 seconds after Cities’ go-ahead rating.
“Nicely, I believe an enormous a part of our turnovers late was as a result of we had 4 guards, and so we had both myself, RJ or [Burks] taking part in the 4, which we by no means do,” Fournier stated. “So once you’re taking part in towards a staff that’s aggressive, that’s mainly once you want house essentially the most.
“You possibly can simply go pass-pass and make the most of that, however once you’re alleged to play at a place that you just by no means did, it may be a bit of difficult.”
Randle wasn’t made accessible to the media after the sport, a extra common prevalence since he was fined for directing a thumbs-down and “shut the f–ok up” clarification on the Backyard followers on Jan. 6. With three video games in 4 days, the Knicks (22-23) additionally held no apply nor media availability on Wednesday forward of Thursday’s house sport towards the Pelicans.
Thibodeau famous Tuesday night time that the gamers want to know that the sport typically is performed and officiated otherwise down the stretch of shut video games and that they wanted to take higher care of the ball through the sloppy closing minutes of their second straight loss on the Backyard.
“Coach is true. We now have to do a greater job with the ball,” Fournier added. “It’s too vital. We now have to get an excellent shot and our execution might have been higher down the stretch, one hundred pc.”
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