It’s 46 video games now. We’re well past the small-sample-size blues. We’re properly past the purpose the place you possibly can speak in regards to the drag of the lengthy season. This isn’t a stoop. This isn’t a blip. That is who the Knicks are. That is what the Knicks are.
And what they're is that this:
They're damaged.
They bought stomped at dwelling by the Pelicans Thursday evening, 102-91, and whereas it generally appears like a vital afterthought so as to add “… in a recreation that wasn’t as shut as the ultimate rating indicated …” on this case it occurs to be true. The Pelicans, now 11 video games below .500 for the 12 months, schooled the Knicks throughout nearly each inch of this mess. The Pelicans aren't a very good staff.
Which begs the query: What adjective do you employ to explain the Knicks?
Damaged.
That’ll do advantageous.
“We performed arduous however didn’t play with the toughness we wanted to battle by issues,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau mentioned after main off his press convention with a sigh that in all probability spoke louder than any phrases might. “Our final six video games we’ve had this inconsistency that now we have to repair.”
Can they be fastened? Thibodeau has these two NBA Coach of the 12 months trophies on his mantel. He's paid greater than $4 million a 12 months to do issues like repair messes exactly like this, to supply a compass for groups which have misplaced their means. It's simple given how final 12 months’s Knicks completed, closing out the common season at 16-4, to overlook that at varied factors of the season they have been additionally 9-13 and 25-27.
They’re 22-24 now, sitting south of the play-in minimize line, with the tooth of their schedule nonetheless to come back. This four-game homestand this week, on which they’re now 0-3, was imagined to be an opportunity for the Knicks to fatten up their report, give them a buffer for what’s to come back, a brutal 49-day, 22-game stretch that features two western swings, 15 highway video games and no fewer than 19 video games towards groups at the moment in postseason place.
If they're damaged now, there’s no telling what they might seem like by March 16, once they play host to the Path Blazers after this stretch is completed.
“We are able to’t place blame,” Thibodeau mentioned. “We've to work our means out of this collectively.”
That begins with the coach who has had a step-back 12 months on the identical degree as Julius Randle. In fact, in case you didn’t know the id of the Knicks coach Thursday evening, and also you simply noticed the staff play, you would possibly’ve simply assumed it was a hard identify from the staff’s wretched current previous, decide one, Derek Fisher or Jeff Hornacek or David Fizdale.
In fact, that is the sort of recreation, the sort of stretch, that tosses a lesser coach squarely on the griddle.
However we all know Thibodeau’s work. We’ve seen it. Amnesia permits us to overlook that as pleasurable as 2020-21 was as an entire, there have been some tough patches alongside the best way. Thibodeau at all times had a solution for these patches (till the playoffs, anyway), and the Knicks at all times had a solution for themselves. That’s been lacking to this point this 12 months. That’s been absent. And so there are nights when the Knicks current some ugly, unwatchable basketball.
As damaged groups will.
“Dropping is frustration,” mentioned RJ Barrett, who was certainly one of two Knicks regulars who performed properly Thursday, alongside Mitchell Robinson (17 factors, 15 rebounds). The opposite 4 starters shot 4-for-22.
“If we didn’t really feel like that there can be an issue,” Barrett mentioned. “The spirit of eager to win is nice nevertheless it takes greater than Xs and Os. Our will — generally you simply must will a recreation, do no matter it takes to win.”
Taj Gibson put it this fashion: “I’m glad that I see guys pissed off about this.”
The gamers weren’t alone. The Backyard was as offended because it’s been in two years, and with cause. The Knicks aren’t simply shedding video games proper now, they give the impression of being bewildered. They give the impression of being bereft of hope. That is how they’ve appeared for 46 video games. That 5-1 begin feels prefer it occurred round 1995 or so.
They're damaged proper now, and except Thibodeau, for starters, has a couple of solutions up his sleeve we could have already got seen the aggressive portion of the 2021-22 Knicks schedule.
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