After encouraging play recently, Knicks get pushed around by Heat
MIAMI — The Knicks were feeling good about themselves, celebrating a one-sided win at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday before working through two days of practice and a morning shootaround.
As the shootaround at AmericanAirlines Arena was coming to an end, players laughed and tried trick shots before speaking about the team coming together.
They pointed to the coaching change that triggered a 3-3 record in their first six games under interim coach Mike Miller after a 4-18 start under David Fizdale, and to the morning players-only meeting on the same day Fizdale was let loose. And they might have been convinced that things were changing for the long-struggling franchise.
Eventually they talked about the matter directly in front of them — a test with the Miami Heat Friday night followed by a meeting with the Milwaukee Bucks Saturday at Madison Square Garden. A few hours later, reality barged in. The Knicks were quickly down by double-digits and spent most of the night trying to avoid having the deficit spill over 40 points. Down by as many as 34, the Knicks fell to the Heat, 129-114, and now return home to face the back end of this two-game set.
“It’s tough,” Marcus Morris said. “It’s the NBA. Nobody is going to feel sorry for us so we have to come in there and compete and give it our best.”
The Knicks saw the Heat/Bucks games as a test to see how far they had come. The answer is that they have a long way to go.
“Who doesn’t want a challenge?” RJ Barrett optimistically said in the morning. “Going up against two of the best teams in the league, it’s great. Especially as a player, that’s kind of what you live for. I’m very excited.”
Perhaps he was less excited as the test got underway and Barrett found himself enduring a 1-for-10 shooting night. The Knicks fell behind by 21 points in the first quarter, trailed by 23 at halftime and saw the lead balloon to 34 in the third quarter before they made a late run to make the score slightly more respectable.
There were a few too-little, too-late performances off the bench with Bobby Portis scoring 30 points (12-for-17 from the field) and Mitchell Robinson adding 18, while shooting 8-for-9. The rest of the team was 21-for-68 (30.1%).
“It’s going to be a big challenge for us,” Portis said in the morning. “The Heat only lost one [home] game this year. Obviously, it’s going to be a big challenge, but I feel like our team, we’re playing good basketball right now. I think we’re catching them at the right time.”
That might be the proper attitude, but it needs a disclaimer. Even with the meeting and the coaching change, the Knicks’ wins have come over the Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks. The Warriors and Hawks represent the two of the three teams in the NBA with a worse record than the Knicks (7-21) through Friday, and the Kings played without their best player, De’Aaron Fox.
But for a team that was drowning, any win is a win. And sometimes losses are more than a loss. The end of Fizdale’s run came after consecutive blowouts, as the Knicks lost by 44 points to the Bucks on Dec. 2 and by 37 to the Denver Nuggets three days later.
With Miller in charge, the Knicks next lost by a single point at home against the Pacers before a 2-2 split of a four-game road trip, culminating in a loss at Denver in which the new Knicks came back from 20 points down to take a fourth-quarter lead before falling, 111-105. Then the Knicks beat the Hawks, 143-120.
The Bucks loss remains a painful memory that the Knicks want to rectify. While there might not be a good time to face these teams, at least the Knicks have had three days — the two practice days and the morning shootaround — to further implement Miller’s plans. Changes could be coming, too, with Miller hinting that he could shake up the lineup for the first time since taking over. He started Elfrid Payton over Frank Ntilikina in the second half Friday and wouldn’t rule out that change becoming a regularity in the starting lineup.
“We took a step back today,” Morris said. “We’re better than that. Good thing about the league, we’ve got another game tomorrow, try to get it back going in the right direction.”
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.
