After facing the Philadelphia 76ers tonight on the road, the Knicks will begin a nine day span of playing five games at Madison Square Garden where they are 8-20. The Knicks were 17-40 overall and 9-20 away from the Garden before contesting the Hornets in Charlotte last night.
Achieving and sustaining positive consistency has been an elusive undertaking for the Knicks this season both under former head coach David Fizdale and interim head coach Mike Miller. The Knicks have engineered only three winning streaks comprising two, three and four consecutive victories and met up with the Hornets seeking to end a string of four straight losses.
Like Fizdale, Miller has shuffled the Knicks’ starting lineup and rotations for various reasons. Injuries have been a factor, but his rationale for the often limited and inconsistent minutes for players such as Kevin Knox and Damyean Dotson seem counterproductive to the former’s development and capricious in the case of the latter, whose offensive production and defensive versatility ostensibly merits him playing as much as any of the Knicks’ shooting guards and small forwards, including rookie RJ Barrett.
Fizdale early in the season and now Miller have confoundingly afforded Barrett much more room to play through his mistakes than Knox, who after a promising rookie season has regressed in his second year.
The Knicks began the week in Houston, losing handily to James Harden and the Rockets by 123-112 on Monday. It was another challenging game for the Knicks on the defensive end of the floor, where they were unable to slow down the Rockets’ small lineup. Harden, one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, netted 31 of his team’s 72 first half points, this after attending the emotional memorial services for Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna at the Staples Center in Los Angeles earlier in the day.
“You have a team that can attack you in so many different ways,” said Miller in a post-game interview on MSG Network. “You have to make them earn everything and I think they got too many easy ones early.”
The Knicks were shorthanded at point guard with Elfrid Payton (sore right ankle) and Frank Ntilikina (groin soreness) out with injuries. The Rockets were without Russell Westbrook who was sidelined with a thumb injury.
Miller’s words could be applied to many of the Knicks’ outings this season. They went into Charlotte ranked 26th in points per game allowed 111.8. There is an indisputable correlation between defensive efficiency and a team’s chances to make it to the postseason.
At the start of the NBA’s schedule yesterday every team ranked in the top 10 in defense currently held a spot in the playoffs. With the Knicks also situated near the bottom of the league in offense, ranked 28th at only 104.8 (the Milwaukee Bucks were first averaging 119.8), they had the fifth highest point differential at -7.0.