For a time, it seemed like a tighter chapter in an amazing Knicks novel. For a while, the Knicks were making all the shots they watched, defending with their usual ferocity, thrilling the small but vocal contingent of Knicks fans at the amway Arena in Orlando.
Eleven minutes into Wednesday’s game, Immanuel Quickley made a couple of free throws.
The Knicks led the Magic, 32-21.
And the .500 was so close you could smell it. It could be tasted. Now, look: .500 is not for everyone. Balance feels like the worst consolation prize most of the time. It is the definition of average. It is mediocrity. And there are few things less satisfying in sports than mediocrity.
Still: The Knicks hadn’t been at .500 after 30 games since 2017. They hadn’t been at .500 on Feb. 17 since 2013. This is a season of incremental steps and split wins. Reaching .500 would not have given any dramatic conclusion and, frankly, would not have caused any celebration of any of the Knicks.
But it is something. And it was in sight.
And then, in a spooky, frightening fog, it wasn’t.
The Magic beat the Knicks, however, 107-89, beating them by 29 points in the final 37 minutes of the game, and more than a beatdown, more than a buzzkill, it was a two-hour reminder of a truth essential about these Knicks: They don’t need to play perfect basketball every night. They should not maximize to the last gram of skill in the list.
But it’s helpful to be close to that.
“They’re a team just like us, scratching and grabbing and trying to make the playoffs,” Quickley said when the slaughter was completed. “Our energy didn’t live up to where Orlando was.”
It was hard to identify anything the Knicks did well Wednesday night other than Julius Randle, and even his 25 points and seven rebounds felt off, much of the damage coming in the first quarter.
Quickley faced the toughest night of his young career, shooting in 11 of 12 shots. His teammate, Derrick Rose, with whom he had established such immediate and obvious chemistry, was 1-10. Few teams can survive two key players shooting 2-on-21; for the Knicks, this is catwalk territory.
Even coach Tom Thibodeau, usually out of reproach, had a few flat moments. On a night when the Knicks bench (usually a reliable force) could barely stay out of their own way, Thibodeau kept both RJ Barrett and Elfrid Payton, who had combined for 28 points for three quarters, the only Knicks besides Randle who reported for service Wednesday night: fixed on the bench.
Of course, he had his reasons: “We were in a hole like this, I was trying to find a way out, I wanted to see where I would go once I got to 10 [with just over six minutes left in the game]”He said – and it’s not the right bet now to guess Thibodeau, who has worked with a master stroke most nights.
It just didn’t go through the Knicks. They lost 15 field goals in a row at one point. They delivered 16 triples to a team that usually can’t shoot straight, allowed Terrence Ross (30 points in 30 minutes off the bench) to bury them one night when they really did a good job with the usual Knicks killer Nikola Vucevic (Shot of 8 for 24, 0 for 7 of 3). Perhaps it was as simple as Randle’s explanation:
“We just didn’t have any,” Randle said. “For any reason.”
Now they get a few days of training thanks to the postponement of the Spurs game on Saturday in the garden, and probably the extra training time comes at a useful time. There are a lot of games at home that can be won. There will be other opportunities to get back to the holy grail, to hit .500, to float to sea level. It is still a worthy goal.
Next time it will be useful to make an effort worthy of this.