Courtney Lee defends Jeff Hornacek, blames Knicks’ woes on injuries
Knicks guard Courtney Lee drives the ball defended by Magic forward Mario Hezonja at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — As the Knicks lurch toward the end of their fourth straight 50-loss season, nearly everyone on the team is looking queasy.
“I’d say it’s like a roller-coaster ride, bro’,” Courtney Lee said when asked Wednesday to sum up both his and the Knicks’ year.
With four games left, the Knicks look like they are more than ready for that ride to end. On Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, the Orlando Magic, one of the worst teams in the league, blew them out. Afterward, coach Jeff Hornacek questioned whether every player was giving maximum effort down the stretch of the game.
There is some thought that the team has tuned out Hornacek, given that he likely will be gone at the end of the season. Lee, however, defended his coach Wednesday, saying that it was injuries — not Hornacek — that were to blame for the Knicks’ problems this season.
“You got to realize we were on a run early on, we hit adversity and you can’t blame anybody for that,” Lee said after practice. “Injuries happen. That’s the world we live in today. We have to blame somebody, right? You can’t control that.”
When one reporter pointed out that some fans were blaming Hornacek, Lee grew visibly annoyed.
“For what? Injuries? For Tim Hardaway Jr. having a stress fracture. For Kristaps Porzingis going down? How can you blame the coach for that?”
The Knicks’ 32-year-old shooting guard believes that Hornacek did a much better job this year than he did last year when he was forced to try to blend his offense with Phil Jackson’s triangle. And indeed the season did begin well for both the Knicks and Lee.
Lee began the season as one of their most dependable players. The team jumped out to a 17-14 start, but then injuries took a toll. They managed to get through 20 games without Hardaway, holding on to a 19-22 record when he returned. Less than a month later, however, Porzingis suffered a season-ending knee injury and the Knicks went into a tailspin.
By the All-Star break, the team was beginning to wave the white flag and pay more attention to its young starters. That meant Lee, who had been averaging 32.6 minutes per game and was averaging 13.1 points before the break, found himself out of the starting lineup and reduced to the role of mentor to young players.
It’s certainly not the season that Lee expected to have, and he admits it hasn’t been easy.
Said Lee: “It’s very difficult. Everyone is pretty smart and understands what’s going on. It’s very frustrating for me as a competitor. I want to be out there competing and trying to help the team win. So these last four games I just want to go out there and compete and enjoy being able to play in the Garden in front of the New York fans and enjoy this moment. That’s my mindset now.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
