Here is the issue with skilled sports: The Knicks’ recent play simply hasn’t been adequate.
If an outmanned college team had turned in three straight home efforts the way in which the Knicks have during their last three games at Madison Square Garden, there could be a discernible consolation prize attached to them. Effort matters. Playing up matters. Pushing good teams to the brink matters.
Within the NBA, 0-3 is 0-3.
Within the NBA, losing, at home, to Portland (second place within the Northwest Division), Memphis (first place within the Southwest Division) and Milwaukee (first place within the Central Division), all in the ultimate minute or in additional time, means one thing: You couldn’t win a winnable game. You weren’t adequate.
You aren’t adequate.
“There aren’t any medals for trying,” Bill Parcells once famously said, six words that summarize all skilled sports, NFL or NBA, MLB or NHL.
Or, as Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after his team’s latest gizzard-grinding loss, 109-103 to the Bucks on Wednesday: “It was a hard-fought game. It’s a make or miss league. We missed.”
Are the Knicks looking higher than they did a couple of weeks ago, after they took off for the West Coast getting ready to watching their season tumble off a cliff? Sure they’re. They went 3-2 on that trip, and within the nine games since allowing 145 points to the Thunder, they’ve shown significantly more effort on that side of the ground.
Are there encouraging elements to remove from these three backbreaking losses on the Garden (sandwiched around a stomping of the Pistons on Tuesday night in Detroit)? Sure there are. The Knicks should consider they will run with these teams, and have shown that they will hang with them. There have been moments late in all three games where they seemed prepared to seize the day.
But they left the day unseized all 3 times.
Within the NBA 0-3 is 0-3.
“That is the league,” Thibodeau said.
“It’s annoying,” RJ Barrett said. “Nobody likes it.”
Wednesday was one other example of the Knicks doing simply enough to lose in agonizing fashion. They played a few of their fiercest defense of the season. They got a monster game from Mitchell Robinson (15 points, 20 rebounds), got here back on the Bucks after falling behind by seven within the fourth, fouled out Giannis Antetokounmpo (though not before he scored 37 points and grabbed 13 rebounds).
“We did numerous things well tonight,” said Barrett, who finished with a team-high 26 points. “We’re convalescing.”
Said Thibodeau: “I like the way in which we competed. I believed we did numerous good things.”
But additionally they missed 4 murderous free throws down the stretch. After they finally tied the rating at 103-all with 47.6 seconds left — and with Antetokounmpo watching from the bench — they allowed a 3-pointer by Grayson Allen that ultimately doomed them. Barrett actually played Allen well, Allen just made the shot.
But that has been the story these past few games:
At any time when a shot must be made, it’s Allen. Or it’s Ja Morant. It’s almost unfair to point this out because he has been so good this yr, but Jalen Brunson had each the Blazers game and the Grizzlies game in his hands, and each times took good shots he normally makes. He just didn’t make those shots.
And people shots are ones the Knicks are going to have to start out making, especially at home. It’s almost bizarre to think that the Knicks are a greater road team (6-6) than they’re on the Garden (4-6). All three of those games have featured raucous, pleading crowds that did all the pieces conceivable to pull them to the finish line, and almost did.
Almost.
But within the NBA, 0-3 is 0-3
It simply isn’t adequate.
Here is the issue with skilled sports: The Knicks’ recent play simply hasn’t been adequate.
If an outmanned college team had turned in three straight home efforts the way in which the Knicks have during their last three games at Madison Square Garden, there could be a discernible consolation prize attached to them. Effort matters. Playing up matters. Pushing good teams to the brink matters.
Within the NBA, 0-3 is 0-3.
Within the NBA, losing, at home, to Portland (second place within the Northwest Division), Memphis (first place within the Southwest Division) and Milwaukee (first place within the Central Division), all in the ultimate minute or in additional time, means one thing: You couldn’t win a winnable game. You weren’t adequate.
You aren’t adequate.
“There aren’t any medals for trying,” Bill Parcells once famously said, six words that summarize all skilled sports, NFL or NBA, MLB or NHL.
Or, as Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after his team’s latest gizzard-grinding loss, 109-103 to the Bucks on Wednesday: “It was a hard-fought game. It’s a make or miss league. We missed.”
Are the Knicks looking higher than they did a couple of weeks ago, after they took off for the West Coast getting ready to watching their season tumble off a cliff? Sure they’re. They went 3-2 on that trip, and within the nine games since allowing 145 points to the Thunder, they’ve shown significantly more effort on that side of the ground.
Are there encouraging elements to remove from these three backbreaking losses on the Garden (sandwiched around a stomping of the Pistons on Tuesday night in Detroit)? Sure there are. The Knicks should consider they will run with these teams, and have shown that they will hang with them. There have been moments late in all three games where they seemed prepared to seize the day.
But they left the day unseized all 3 times.
Within the NBA 0-3 is 0-3.
“That is the league,” Thibodeau said.
“It’s annoying,” RJ Barrett said. “Nobody likes it.”
Wednesday was one other example of the Knicks doing simply enough to lose in agonizing fashion. They played a few of their fiercest defense of the season. They got a monster game from Mitchell Robinson (15 points, 20 rebounds), got here back on the Bucks after falling behind by seven within the fourth, fouled out Giannis Antetokounmpo (though not before he scored 37 points and grabbed 13 rebounds).
“We did numerous things well tonight,” said Barrett, who finished with a team-high 26 points. “We’re convalescing.”
Said Thibodeau: “I like the way in which we competed. I believed we did numerous good things.”
But additionally they missed 4 murderous free throws down the stretch. After they finally tied the rating at 103-all with 47.6 seconds left — and with Antetokounmpo watching from the bench — they allowed a 3-pointer by Grayson Allen that ultimately doomed them. Barrett actually played Allen well, Allen just made the shot.
But that has been the story these past few games:
At any time when a shot must be made, it’s Allen. Or it’s Ja Morant. It’s almost unfair to point this out because he has been so good this yr, but Jalen Brunson had each the Blazers game and the Grizzlies game in his hands, and each times took good shots he normally makes. He just didn’t make those shots.
And people shots are ones the Knicks are going to have to start out making, especially at home. It’s almost bizarre to think that the Knicks are a greater road team (6-6) than they’re on the Garden (4-6). All three of those games have featured raucous, pleading crowds that did all the pieces conceivable to pull them to the finish line, and almost did.
Almost.
But within the NBA, 0-3 is 0-3
It simply isn’t adequate.
