The Knicks have already survived a slippery slope. They recently lost five in a row, with a record upside down, 5-3 to 5-8, and looked a little baffled and very evenly matched almost every time they took the floor. And we’ve seen where it’s taken them in recent years.
Then the Knicks came into Boston and surprised the Celtics.
He returned home and kept the magic on MLK day.
I flew west to start a four-game western swing and the Warriors stepped on the lever. And all of a sudden, the 5-8 was back to the 8-8, the Knicks looked like they’d seen the first eight games of the season, looked hungry and angry, and wanted to surprise almost everyone around the NBA, starting with the tired skeptics. they say New York home.
It was only six days ago.
Now, the Knicks are back home after being dragged by the Jazz, 108-94 (in a game they led to 15 at the end of the second quarter), after falling three straight to the Kings (a game that felt achievable most of the time), Blazers (a game in which they didn’t show the first half and were still alive along the stretch) and Jazz (that early advantage built primarily by an explosion of the first half of 10 by 10 and 25 points in the first half by Austin Rivers).
They return home three games under .500, with the eyes of a fact-there, fact-that fan base hoping not to be about to see more of the same. It’s actually the inevitable pace of a season where so little was expected, so little was expected. The annoyance reaches everyone, especially the teams that play every night with a talent gap.
So now, for the second time in a week and a half, we’ll learn a little about the Knicks, who will take the Cavaliers and Clippers home, who will travel to Chicago for a two-game swing with the Bulls, then back in the field to do a tricky back-to-back with the Blazers and the Heat from Sunday to Sunday in the Super Bowl.
We seem to be learning something new about the Knicks, with every game, with every home, with every road trip, with every streak of wins, with every losing skate. It is the learning curve of youth. And it will show up now. Such is the mission of Tom Thibodeau. This is the team’s challenge.
“Games and challenges keep coming,” Thibodeau said Tuesday night, not seeming too pleased with the way the Knicks fell off the grid these last three games to the west.
“It simply came to our notice then. Regardless of what your schedule is, you need to find a way to win. You want to try to keep building the right habits. In the NBA, everyone has tough stretches and that’s how they handle it. We have already recovered. We have to go back. ”
The Jazz won for the ninth time in a row, having turned red after giving the Knicks a big lead in the garden on January 6th. In many ways, they represent a bit of a plan for the Knicks, a team that has consistently become a Western Conference power through a basketball plan as old as pick-and-roll: smart writing, smart handling Smart, smart signings, smart training.
“They are well armed,” Thibodeau said, with admiration in his clear voice.
Since the Knicks are a big-market team with the power of Madison Square Garden behind them, there will always be hope that an impact acquisition can catapult them wherever they want. This despite years of proving otherwise.
So it’s probably not a bad idea for Leon Rose and the rest of the team’s professionals to adopt a plan B. And the Jazz plan is so successful that the Knicks have helped a couple of Utah architects to Walt Perrin, now Rose’s assistant, and Johnnie Bryant, now one of Thibodeau’s lieutenants.
Utah coach Quin Snyder has a similar thinking to Thibodeau, primarily a winner during his first stint as head coach at the University of Missouri and has consistently built a quiet powerhouse in Salt Lake City, which from 206 to 98 from the beginning. of the 2016-17 season.
“These guys take the win-win business very seriously,” Snyder said last week.
You could see Thibodeau come up with something very similar when the timing is right and the team is right. For now, they try to stay afloat. For now, the steps are much more modest. The Jazz are at a time when they have a season to savor. The Knicks have a season to save.