The term Tom Thibodeau uses all the time, almost every game, win or lose, explode or nail, is: “Margin of error.”
The Knicks have very little. Theirs is a delicate chemistry based on confidence and tenacity, the belief that they are better as a whole than as individuals, that they may care a little more than the other on a given night, especially on defense.
But if you want to give this margin a human face, it’s easy to do.
He wears the number 30 on his shirt and played in the NBA All-Star Game and has become the most indispensable Knick. And, with 6 minutes and 41 seconds left for the fourth quarter on Tuesday night, Julius Randle bounced back from a short shot and had the great misfortune of trying to shoot at Dwight Howard.
Howard is not the force he used to be, but he remains an imposing presence, still a physical force, capable of blocking anyone’s shot. He was going to fill this, well, his third of the night, the 2,168th of his career, the 13th of all who have ever played the game. But that was Randle’s secondary theme.
Gravity was number 1.
And Randle crashed into the court in a heap, unable to break his fall, landing directly on his hip. It was at that moment that you were allowed to see the rest of the season flashing before your eyes. Randle is not an individual show for the Knicks, but it is the engine that makes everything else work, that makes everything else possible.
And he didn’t get up right away.
“You’re very worried when you see a player go down like that,” Thibodeau would say a little later. “But it has a lot of toughness.”
He does. He did. He put it on again. Thibodeau asked him if he needed to leave the game. Randle shook him.
“Expect the best because you really can’t do anything while you fall,” Randle would say. “It simply came to our notice then. But then I was fine.
Until then, Randle had 18 points and 14 rebounds and, as has been the case most nights, was primarily responsible for the Knicks leading the 76ers for much of the game. They still led four, 87-83, when Randle sank to the ground. He was already clearly tired, showing the effects of the backward business.
Although he said he was not affected by the fall, it clearly did not help. He got a point the rest of the way. He caught a rebound. The Sixers, even without Joel Embiid, had one last counterpoint and used it, and would win the game 99-96, frustrating the Knicks to split this difficult four-game journey that began the second half of the season. .
“On the back nights, we took 1-2 East to the net,” RJ Barrett said of the Knay ‘Nets / Sixers road parlay. “We have to learn from that.”
Randle was less enthusiastic: “I don’t believe in moral victories. It’s a victory or a loss for me. “
The good news, for the Knicks, is that Randle stayed upright the rest of the way and insisted the fall didn’t affect the rest of the game. Fair enough. Even less Embiid the Sixers are a formidable team and the Knicks had to be at their best at night to have a shot. They had one. They took it. They continue.
“The games,” Thibodeau said, “keep coming.”
For most of the first half of the season, much of the East was a confusing mess. But that has begun to change. The Heat are 9-1 in their last 10 games, the Hornets and Hawks 7-3, the Bulls 6-4. If the Knicks want to keep the postseason as part of the agenda, they have to keep pace. Above all, they must avoid a catastrophe. Already hit: Mitchell Robinson, Elfrid Payton and Derrick Rose.
Losing Randle would be another matter. Losing Randle would be seismic.
So even on a night when the Knicks lost, seeing Randle come off the ground was a victory. The season may not have started with playoff or play-in aspirations, but they are now on the table. They are part of the plan. But only if they can be kept whole. And it all means having the number 30 on the floor.