The New York Knicks knew that it would be hard to repeat as NBA champions after they had the shortest summer out of all teams and spent weeks throwing parties in the “Big Apple” that would make the Great Gatsby turn pale with envy. On top of that recent history with nine different title winners in nine years also told the Bockers that it would be almost impossible to win it a second time in a row. If they or you needed a reminder – here’s the 0-3 start for the defending champs. It’s not just talk
anymore, it’s right in front of us in hard, cold numbers. Or as valued poster Keef suggested in the Postgame Thread: “This is getting real”.
How real remains to be determined but right now it looks like nobody in Knick Nation wants to find out how bad this can get. Your beloved New York Ballers dragged themselves through another anemic, incomplete performance on Sunday night and granted the shorthanded Orlando Magic (playing without Paolo Banchero) their first win of the young season. It’s not like the Knicks didn’t try, starting with Jalen Brunson who came out extremely aggressive and stayed that way throughout the entire contest. 28 shots and 16 misses later though it turned out all for naught.
Knicks searching for… what exactly?
It’s one of captain’s many remarkable traits that he never shies away from a challenge and is willing to put the team on his back even in the darkest of times. If him shooting that much is the best way for the Knicks in a game like this can be debated though and has been plenty in the past, especially when his shot is as off as it certainly seems to be early in the year. Nobody wants Brunson to change because eventually we will get the Finals Game 5 version of him (damn, that was beautiful). Yet he himself knows that not even the new king of the city has found a solution yet for all that’s wrong with the team right now.
Against Orlando, it actually looked like the Knicks had finally grabbed the rope and started to pull themselves out of the mud with a 12-0 start in the first quarter. The gameplan of leaving the Magic wide open from downtown worked to perfection as one of the worst three-point shooting teams in recent memory stacked up brick after brick. But before they finished a nice little three-story Brooklyn townhouse, their reserves, led by Anthony Black and Tristan Da Silva, all of a sudden did the unthinkable – they hit their open shots! Countless times the Knicks overhelped on drives and could not recover in time out to the arc and with every new make you could sense the confidence for their counterparts growing.
Magic reserves dominate Knicks bench
In turn the Knicks themselves all of a sudden realized that they could actually lose this game against an opponent who has traditionally played them very tough over the last few years. They got careless with the ball, you could feel them thinking too much and in the end they did exactly what you would have expected from those scrappy stonethrowers from Disney World – they missed their three-pointers. A lot of them all the way to a clip of 24 percent on the night.
Superior talent in the form of Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns or OG Anunoby let the Knicks still lead for most of the night but at no point it really feel sustainable. Missing Jose Alvarado the Knicks reserves were outscored 47-11 by the magical second unit and couldn’t muster up anything more than a few nice moments. Andre Drummond was, well, Andre Drummond. James Wiseman had a spectacular block but played way too giddy, Tyler Kolek had plenty of helpers (9 assists in 15 minutes) but once again struggled against Orlando’s size. Landry Shamet and Deuce McBride were off and it certainly didn’t help them that Mike Brown experienced with a lineup that saw Mikal Bridges initiating the offense exclusively, surrounded by reserves. Yup, unfortunately it went as expected and did not really unlock the coldest player in basketball right now.
A fourth quarter to forget or learn from
But even if their reinforcements or the shooting hands weren’t up to par the Knicks starters still had a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter. At that point they decided it might be a fun idea to let Franz Wagner get going a little bit and the big German certainly enjoyed it. After being silenced for most of the night by OG Anunoby he all of sudden stumbled upon the green light of seeing Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges in front of him for a long stretch. Wagner hit that metal quicker than he ever would on the Autobahn A100 in Berlin and drove into the paint at will against the smaller defenders. With all the momentum on their side shots fell again for Orlando and New York was wondering what actually had happened to them. In case you are also still wondering: 40 points by the Magic in the fourth quarter alone. Ballgame.
The bad defensive execution against an offensively challenged Magic team feels symbolic for what the Knicks are still missing to start the season. They made a living during their long playoff run of being the smartest squad in the arena, of making the right pass at the right time, the correct rotation whenever it was needed. Paired with plenty of toughness, Jalen Marquis Brunson and an innovative offensive system it turned out to be a devastating combination, especially in a league where fundamentals have become a relic of the past at times. It also could hide many of the flaws that the Knicks had shown us for the better part of two years with this current nucleus.
Some of these flaws are showing up again because right now New York isn’t making the “right” plays often enough. And until they aren’t making them this losing streak could continue. “There’s no light switch that we can just turn on and think we’re going to go win ballgames”, head coach Mike Brown said in the postgame. “Nobody is going to give us any of that. We have to be better with the little things until we start shooting the ball well.” Just like his players, he seems to be searching. The solution for the current issues might be physical, it might be mental. It might be a little bit of both.
Let’s hope that it is real sooner rather than later.
