Barbara Barker: Will Knicks be able to flip a switch when games begin to really count?
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson brings the ball up court against the Chicago Bulls during the first quarter at Madison Square Garden on Friday. Credit: Brad Penner
Is there something seriously off with the Knicks? Or is there just something seriously off with the belief that how they play in the final month of the season determines how they will play in the playoffs?
With four games left in the regular season, the Knicks are fighting to hold on to the third seed in the Eastern Conference. Not a horrible position to be in, except that most pundits predicted that the Knicks would finish at the top of the Eastern Conference this season.
The Knicks have had little problem putting away bad teams. Witness the way they rolled over the lottery-bound Bulls, 136-96, Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
Yet, it’s been almost a month since the Knicks beat a team with a winning record, which has caused a substantial amount of handwringing among the franchise faithful since the Knicks final four opponents — Atlanta, Boston, Toronto and Charlotte — all have winning records.
Every time Karl-Anthony Towns finishes with single-digit attempts, some jump to the conclusion that there is a problem between him and Brunson. Every time a Knick player makes a comment after a bad loss, it seems to be dissected for signs that there could be a division in the locker room.
One person not all that worried, however, is Knicks coach Mike Brown.
“You always want your team to be playing at the highest of high cylinders,” Brown said before Friday’s game. “Do I think we’re there right now? No. Do I have belief in this team? Yes I do.
“I’ve seen us play really good basketball throughout the course of the year. Even in games where there’s quote unquote manufactured pressure. We’ve played really good basketball. So I like what we have in that locker room and I like the things that we’ve done this year. But I expect more from myself first and everybody else second.”
The Knick have gone 9-5 since they destroyed Denver, 142-103, on March 6. No, they are not steamrolling their way into the playoffs, but neither was last year’s team that became the first Knicks squad to make it to the Eastern Conference finals since 2000.
In fact, the Knicks' record of 50-28 is identical to the same record they had last season before catching fire in the postseason. In fact, there wasn’t much to give fans hope back then the team lost to Boston, Detroit and Cleveland in the final week of the regular season.
The early hype and promise of this team might have something to do with the plethora of concerns. The Knicks came into the season with a new coach, a better bench and what appeared to be weaker Eastern Conference competition.
The Knicks were the popular pick to finish the top seed. The Celtics started the year without Jayson Tatum and were unsure if he’d come back. The Pacers, without Tyrese Haliburton, were headed in another direction. The Cavaliers were coming off yet another disappointing postseason.
What’s more, Knicks management also set the bar incredibly high shortly after the Knicks won the NBA Cup in December with Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan saying in an interview on WFAN that getting to the Finals was something “we absolutely got to do.”
Back when the Knicks defeated San Antonio in an exciting NBA Cup Final, it was hard not to get enthusiastic about the Knicks. The problem is the ceiling is so high and the floor is so low on this team that it is nearly impossible to project how far they could go in the playoffs.
There are nights, like in Denver, where the Knicks just do everything right and produce a win that at least for one night makes believers out of even the biggest skeptics. And then there are others — like the most recent stretch they suffered three consecutive double-digit losses to Charlotte, Oklahoma City and Houston — when you wonder why they can’t get it together to beat a team with a winning record.
Yes, there are some genuine concerns. The bench, which was supposed to be so much better this season, continues to be a weakness and is the third lowest scoring group of reserves in the league. The team continues to be overly reliant on Brunson offensively as there really is no reliable No. 2 scorer.
Still, the Knicks have shown they can play well when the games count the most.
Said Brown: “My belief going into the playoffs is when it’s real, that’s when our guys will rise to the occasion.”
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.
