Winning an NBA title is an arduous endeavor. The obstacles are multifaceted. Encountering adversity is inherent. The Knicks are currently in that space.
Eight days after notching their seventh-straight victory, the Knicks went into Memphis last night to play the Grizzlies on a three-game losing skid, having consecutive road defeats to the Charlotte Hornets last Thursday (114-103), Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday (111-100) and Houston Rockets (111-94) on Tuesday.
How they lost is a warning sign for the team.
The Knicks started slowly in each, trailing in the first quarter — by double digits to the Hornets and Rockets — and never established consistently resolute play on either the offensive or defensive half of the floor. They were thoroughly outplayed in multiple phases and didn’t threaten either the Hornets or Rockets. In falling to OKC, the Knicks have been on the wrong side of the scoreboard in their last six meetings with the defending NBA champions and are 2-10 over the last 12 head-to-head games.
The more immediate and critically important matter when the Knicks (48-28) tipped-off against the lowly (25-50) Grizzlies is that they were only one game ahead of the Cleveland Cavaliers (47-29) for the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference sprint to the playoffs with just 10 days remaining in the regular season. The Boston Celtics (50-25), the No. 2 seed, were 2.5 games above the Knicks and the No. 1 seed Detroit Pistons (55-21) were holding steady at seven games ahead of them with New York having just five more games left before the start of the postseason.
Knicks forward Josh Hart affirmed the obvious after the loss to the Rockets.
“I just think we’re not going in the right direction, we’re not trending upwards,” he said via the MSG Network. “You know, and we have to figure it out. Three tough ones and we have another one tomorrow and that’s a must win for us and do it from there.”
He added that their performance versus the Rockets was “pretty embarrassing.”
“They didn’t feel us at all in the pick-and-roll game,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said regarding what he deemed as insufficient physicality by his team. “It has to be there. I’m frustrated with that part. Because I sound like a broken record…
“I thought we made strides against Oklahoma City. You gotta give our guys credit. We competed. We came out to start the game, they felt us, but tonight everything was just real easy [for the Rockets].”
The Knicks will take on the Chicago Bulls at the Garden tomorrow, be in Atlanta on Monday to play the Hawks and back home next Thursday for a much anticipated and likely consequential game versus the Celtics.
The post The Knicks encounter adversity as they close out the regular season appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
