The end is what will gnaw these Knicks for a couple of days, before they face the Wizards in Washington on Friday. The ending was a nice trip from RJ Barrett that went wrong, with a smart, old Jimmy Butler staying with Barrett long enough to force Barrett to climb higher into the glass than he wanted.
The ball bounces off. The final buzzer moaned at the American Airlines Arena. There would be no overtime. There would be no payback for Sunday’s hotly contested match between these two teams. There would be no satisfactory flight from Miami. The end result was 98-96, Heat, the final verdict that the Knicks, though better, are still learning to win, and part if that curve involves learning not to lose.
“We need everyone to play well,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “And in the end we fell short.”
But if you’ve invested in this Knicks team, you’ve seen something that should make you feel great. By now, you’ve probably learned to trust Thibodeau, to trust his instincts, to recognize that he knows the little nuances that allow teams willing to improve.
Therefore, it should have been obvious that Thibodeau was not interested in any meeting to feel good when it became clear that Derrick Rose was not simply available, but was interested in a second tour with the Knicks and a third tutored tour. for Thibodeau. Thibodeau has made it clear that he is only one thing and one thing.
And there is a certain way to make that ambition a reality.
“I’ve always been partial,” he had said earlier in the day, “to good players.”
And Rose, even at 32, even after the twists and turns of a sometimes stellar career, is still a good player. As if to bolster it and also to suppress any fears Knicks fans might have about stealing Immanuel Quickley’s playing time, the two recorded together at the same time Tuesday night, no. 4 and no. 5 taking the floor with 3:27 at the end of the first quarter and the Knicks at seven.
And for the next six minutes, with two quarters left, the Knicks continued a 25-6 run. Quickley was fine. But it was Rose who raised her eyebrows: get to the basket with the old touch, shoot it well, make a robbery, cheer on her teammates. It was impossible to keep his eyes off him.
He would finish with 14 points and three assists, playing just 20 minutes. While the Knicks were trying to steal one from the Heat at the end of the quarter, it was on the bench, Thibodeau didn’t want to ask too much of his first day of work. But the impact could be felt immediately.
Quickley, in the morning, had talked about Rose looking for him and Obi Toppin at dinner Monday night, giving them their cell phone number, but demanding that they take his brain. Quickley laughed at his shared legacy as survivors of John Calipari’s college apprenticeship, and laughed that Thibodeau was the coach of both during his NBA debut years.
“There’s a lot I can learn from him,” Quickley said.
“He always tries to win,” Barrett said. “It’s great to have a guy like that on our team.”
As for Rose herself? He seemed frankly moved to get another crack in New York and to collaborate again with Thibodeau, a couple who could really have given something special to Chicago a decade ago if bad luck hadn’t intervened.
“We have a synergy, I can’t explain it,” Rose said. “We’re a weird couple, but for some reason we understand the game the same way, we’re students of the game, we watch the game and we try to understand it better.”
Not only did he understand that part of his role with the Knicks would help the kids adjust to NBA life, but he enthusiastically approved of it.
“My job,” he said, “is to come in and understand that I want to be a mentor to young children, help them develop. And I also show that I can still do a little hooping.”
It showed a bit of all that Tuesday, a game the Knicks lost, because they’re still learning not to lose games like this. These lessons may be easier to understand in the future. There is a new mentor in the house. And you can still do a little hooping.