Knicks try to learn from their mistakes a week earlier against Oklahoma City Thunder
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson drives to the basket defended by Oklahoma City Thunder guard Cason Wallace in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
As they prepared for Friday night’s meeting at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks could roll the film from their first meeting with Oklahoma City a week ago and pick out corrections to make and maybe even — at least in the case of coach Tom Thibodeau — still steam over a mistaken call that helped the game slip away in the final minutes.
But the message delivered and received was a more simple one, a message that Thibodeau has stressed to his teams for years. Play for 48 minutes.
The Knicks built a 14-point lead against the Thunder last week and saw it disappear, with OKC finally pushing in front on a three-pointer after Isaiah Hartenstein made a save of an air ball along the baseline. Replays, however, showed he had stepped out of bounds. Oklahoma City won by 10 for their 14th consecutive victory, snapping the Knicks' winning streak at nine. The Thunder entered Friday night at 30-6 to the Knicks' 25-13.
“Yeah, you’ve just got to play for 48 minutes,” Thibodeau said before tipoff Friday night of a game in which the Knicks fell behind early and trailed by 28 in the second quarter. “A hard-fought game on the road. You’ve got to be strong on both sides of the ball. It went down to the wire. We’ve got to finish stronger.”
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The Knicks were boosted this time by the return of Deuce McBride, who had sat out the previous five games with a strained hamstring, giving them a key bench piece to provide a few minutes of rest for the starters. But the Knicks were loath to blame that loss — or the two that followed it — on lack of depth or the minutes the starters were forced to play, instead focusing on their own shortcomings.
“I learned that we should have executed better down the stretch,” Josh Hart said. “We’ve got to get Jalen [Brunson] off the ball a little more. You’ve got a physical guy like Lu Dort picking him up 94 feet. We’re having him exert a lot of energy just getting the ball across half-court. We’ve got to make sure we’re looking out for each other, make sure we’re executing at a high level. I think we built a 12- or 14-point lead at one point, so got to continue when we have things like that to bury teams and not keep the door open.”
“You’ve got to be able to sustain it, and oftentimes it comes down to, we had a five-point lead late in that game,” Thibodeau said. “And there’s a play — a loose ball that’s a scramble play — and Isaiah was out of bounds on the play, and we were up [two]. And they get a three off of it. That’s a big play. They’re great reacting to the ball. Obviously with Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] and Jalen Williams, it puts a lot of pressure on your defense. When the ball is shot, you’ve got to get back to bodies. You’ve got to finish everything you’re doing.”
The Thunder learned something, too, facing the Knicks and Celtics in successive games and both times overcoming a double-figure deficit for a convincing win before dropping a tight game in Cleveland. Maybe it was because the Knicks were on the schedule again Friday, but Thunder coach Mark Daigneault put them in the same class as Boston and Cleveland.
“Those are really good teams,” he said. “I respect, they put you in a ton of dilemmas. They all have pick-your-poison elements to them. There’s not just one thing you can take away that’ll lead to success. They’re well-coached. They’re prepared. They’re competitive. Those are all really good teams. We’ve got high respect for them and we had to earn the wins we got in those games. It’s been great for us at this point of the season to test ourselves against the teams of that level. But all three of those teams are monster teams.”
Daigneault was struggling with a non-COVID illness, masked as he conducted his pregame interview session and noting that he had stocked up on fluids, eaten healthy and napped. He knew what was in front of him and his team.
“They’re going to be hungry,” he said. “They felt like they let one get away at our place with the way the game unfolded. It was a great game. They’re a great team. They threw the first punch. They really had us on our heels for much of that game. So they’re going to be ready on their home court coming off that last one.”
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.
