Barbara Barker: Knicks work to eliminate slow starts with win over Wizards
Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns passes the ball defended by Washington Wizards forward Tristan Vukcevic in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Knicks needed to have a better attitude when it comes to facing inferior teams.
So warned Mitchell Robinson two days before his team played host on Sunday to the Washington Wizards, who are not only an inferior team but an inferior team that had nine players listed as out on its injury report.
This time his teammates listened, extending the Knicks’ winning streak to six with a 145-113 victory over a Wizards team that has lost 16 straight games.
The game was quite a contrast with the performance the Knicks put on Friday night when they barely escaped a 93-92 nail-biter against the Nets in Brooklyn. Robinson, the longest-tenured Knick, made it clear after that win that the entire team had to stop looking at the record of inferior teams and assume that “we’re going to whip their butts.”
“We definitely had to have everyone have the right mindset and come in and get the job done,” Robinson said during his on-court postgame interview. “Everyone handled their business and got the job done.”
The win, coupled with Boston’s loss to the Timberwolves, moved the third-place Knicks to within a half-game of Boston.
The Knicks (47-25) have compiled their six-game winning streak against sub-.500 teams. That record, however, has masked some serious concerns as they have relied on second-half surges to beat opponents they should have dominated from the get-go.
The Knicks trailed after the first quarter in three of the six wins. They trailed by eight against the Nets, 14 against Golden State and 15 against Utah. In two others, both against last-place Indiana, the Knicks led by four and three points after the first quarter.
All of this against teams that are eyeing the lottery and really aren’t all that concerned about winning.
So what, you say? Does it really matter as long as the Knicks are the team on top after the fourth quarter?
Well, it kind of does. This habit of slow starts is more than a bit disconcerting because while the Knicks might be able to overcome a bad start against a bad team, it’s much harder to do against good or even mediocre ones. This clearly was on display in the Knicks’ two losses before the start of the six-game streak as the Lakers and Clippers took leads in the first quarter to set the tone.
Jalen Brunson, who scored 23 points against the Wizards, took encouragement from the way the Knicks put together a strong game against Washington. The Knicks had seven players score in double figures in the game. OG Anunoby had nine points and three others added eight.
“I think we came out and we played our style,” Brunson said. “We got the lead and played well with the lead.”
Coach Mike Brown has spent a good chunk of the season talking about how the Knicks have to get off to better starts, and he again found himself in that position after the narrow win over the Nets on Friday night.
“I thought we were real lackadaisical with the basketball,” Brown said. “We had 13 turnovers at halftime . . . 13 or 14 is what we usually have in a game. And we had 13 at halftime. And we ended the game with 22. We know we have to play better. And I believe our guys will play better.”
And that is basically the message he delivered before Sunday’s game. “We talked about it. Our big thing is making our opponent feel us,” he said. “We did a better job in that area. I thought we did a nice job of moving the ball and taking the right shots.
“I think we’re still improving. But I give our guys credit that they are fighting to do the right thing . . . I think we’re in a decent spot with the season about to end going into the playoffs.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
