Julius Randle loses it, and so do Knicks
Knicks guard Immanuel Quckley is defended by Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard during the second half of an NBA game Saturday in Los Angeles. Credit: AP/Ringo H.W. Chiu
LOS ANGELES — It was the final second of the third quarter, the clock down to just three-tenths of a second, when the frustration boiled over for Julius Randle.
Until then, it might have been the officiating (as the game was played with basically a no-blood, no-foul approach) or his own struggles (as he endured another brutal shooting performance), but Randle reared back and fired an elbow at Clippers center Mason Plumlee. As the teams went to the bench for a video review that would result in a technical on Randle and a foul on him, too — calls that would cost the Knicks three points — Randle blew up.
He started toward the officials, with Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau restraining him, and when team security tried to intercept him, blocking his path, he shouted at teammate Evan Fournier and team security guard Tim Rylko before finally heading to the end of the bench.
Frustration is understandable for the Knicks right now. The 106-95 loss dropped them into sixth place behind the Nets by percentage points with 13 games remaining. They lost for the third straight game and face life without Jalen Brunson for an indefinite stretch. The nine-game winning streak and good feelings seem like a long time ago.
“I mean, I wasn’t good today. I was bad,” Randle said. “But the officials today? Pssh. I’ll just leave it at that . . . All you got to do is watch the game and see what you see going on.”
When asked if the game had a playground, no-blood, no-foul feel to it, he said, “Oh, there was [expletive] blood out there for sure. I ain’t rolling with that. There was blood out there for sure.”
Of his anger on the sideline, he apologized afterward.
“They were just trying to restrain me,” Randle said. “They thought I was trying to walk to the officials, but I was just trying to walk off, blow some steam. They were just doing their job, trying to protect me. But when you’re in the middle of that and you’re getting held back, frustrated, trying to walk off, blow some steam, just miscommunication, that’s all it is.”
The three points on Randle’s miscue and rant turned a one-point Knicks lead into a two-point deficit entering the fourth quarter. Randle went to the bench for the start of the quarter, which is normal for his rotation, and returned with 6:28 to play and the Knicks trailing 89-82.
Kawhi Leonard not only clamped down defensively but had 38 points and shot 14-for-22 for the Clippers.
Randle finished with 19 points but shot 5-for-24, and the Knicks got little help elsewhere in the starting lineup. RJ Barrett was limited to 11 points. Only Immanuel Quickley, starting in place of Brunson, had a solid offensive night with 26 points and 10 rebounds. The Knicks shot 7-for-31 from three-point range.
Randle shot 5-for-17 against Charlotte and 8-for-22 against Sacramento before this one.
“I would just say team-wide, that’s where we are right now,” Thibodeau said. “You’re going to have the ebbs and flows of the season. There’s going to be ups and downs and you just work your way through it and oftentimes, the way you get out of it — and when I say ‘you,’ I mean ‘we’ — is we have to do it together, we got to get easy baskets for each other and we got to help create rhythm for each other.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
