Knicks Recap: Trying to Find Silver Linings

Knicks Letdowns Continue

After their best win of the season against the Miami Heat, the Knicks traveled to Milwaukee with the hope of pulling off the upset. A win against Miami is always big and the offense finally clicked in that game. Why couldn’t it continue?

Long story short, it didn’t. The Knicks got completely outclassed by a flat out better team. If Milwaukee had not scored a single point in the fourth quarter they still would have won the game by 6. That is how bad the Knicks offense has been.

After that beat-down they traveled back home for a winnable game against the Phoenix Suns. Well the offense sputtered again scoring only 98 points against the 19 best defensive team (according to defensive efficiency ratings). Led by Julius Randle’s 26, only three Knicks scored in double figures, while they allowed three Suns to score 25 or more. This 121-98 loss at home was one of the tougher losses to swallow this season.

To add insult to injury, RJ Barrett wound up leaving this game with a sprained ankle. As of last night he had still not returned to the lineup after an initial timeline of about a week.

Staying Competitive

When writing my Knicks recap I am always looking for silver linings to write about. If you write on a team that is 12-33 and in 14^th place in the conference, that becomes difficult and competitive losses mean something. When you are playing top tier teams, playing with those guys for 48 minutes means something in a lost season. Staying competitive is a silver lining.  

Two nights after the debacle against the Suns, the Knicks hosted a shorthanded 76ers team playing without Joel Embiid. That didn’t matter. The Knicks only managed 87 points matching their second lowest point total of the season. The defense actually kept them in this game though. The Sixers only shot 44% from the field and 31% from the three point line. Tobias Harris eventually killed the upset with a three pointer with 28 seconds left to take the lead for good.

The Knicks finally picked up a win on the road on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They traveled to Cleveland and had one of their most balanced offensive games of the season. Six players were in double figures led by Marcus Morris and Julius Randle, who both had 19. The game ended in a 106-86 win for the Knicks.

After a much needed win the Knicks headed back home to Madison Square Garden to host Lebron and the Lakers. This one was another one of those “competitive losses” against one of the best teams in the league. The Knicks had the game tied with 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, but never got closer than four points after that. They kept it close enough to make the Lakers sweat it out though. Lebron and Anthony Davis played a combined 66 minutes in a game that should have been a way to rest for them. The Knicks pushed the Lakers and at this point, that’s all we can ask from them.

Next Week

One positive takeaway from this week is that the Knicks stayed out of the news. Usually if they are in the news it is for something bad, but they stayed clean this week which is a plus.

Over the next week the Knicks play two home games against current playoff teams: Toronto and Brooklyn. Then they travel to Charlotte to play a somewhat better than expected Hornets team, followed by the Grizzlies back in the Garden the next night. At some point in the very distant future, I am hoping to write a positive Knicks recap.

I never expect too much from this team, but one thing I am praying for over the last 4 months of the season is a Kevin Knox breakout. A core of him, RJ Barrett, and Mitchell Robinson would not only be great to watch, but it may attract some free agent attention. If the three of them can form a formidable core and draw some big names in, the Knicks may have a brighter future than any of us can imagine.

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