Steve Popper: Knicks aren't what we thought they were, but at least it's early
Knicks guard Jalen Brunson takes a moment before the start of an NBA game against the Orlando Magic at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Since the beginning of training camp, Jalen Brunson has repeated his warning that the first few weeks of the season will tell the Knicks where they’re at.
About a week into the season, it isn’t a good place.
There still may be little call for panic even after the Knicks returned to the Garden on Sunday night and fell to 0-3 with a fourth-quarter collapse against the shorthanded — and winless entering the night — Orlando Magic. After scoring the first 12 points of the game, the Knicks blew a 10-point lead in the final quarter and lost, 111-102.
No panic? Are you sure?
The Knicks became only the second defending champion to start its title defense by losing its first three games, matching the 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks. That team finished 36-30 and lost in the opening round of the playoffs, perhaps an ominous sign.
Just a warning — no defending champ has ever lost its first four games, but the Knicks are hosting the unbeaten Pistons on Tuesday night.
“Everyone can say it’s early in the season,” Brunson said. “We can use that as an excuse, but I think the one thing I see is when we get those runs and start to look like the team that we did in the past, we get comfortable. So we have to continue to put our foot on the gas and execute like we did last year. And we’re not going to be the same. That’s just human nature. But we have to accept this part of the journey and find a way to be better. Hopefully after a couple games, we can look back and say we grew from that.
“We’re going to get everyone’s best because of last year. Everyone has been telling us what a great job we did, how fun it was, what we did for the city, the constant praise, and so we need the opposite.”
Even the Knicks’ troubles have been familiar ones. Karl-Anthony Towns battled foul trouble in the season opener, and even as he excelled in Boston, he again was saddled with five fouls. Without Mitchell Robinson, the backup center position has been a revolving door with little production since Andre Drummond’s first half on opening night.
Brunson hasn’t been himself yet and committed a crucial turnover late — one of 49 the Knicks have piled up in three games. Mikal Bridges, who seems to spend the regular season questioned and critiqued before flourishing in the playoffs, has scored only 10 points in three games and shot 5-for-23.
There still are 79 games to go, and the last few seasons have shown that what happens in the regular season means little more than serving as a warm-up and making sure that a team is as close to complete and healthy as it can be when the playoffs roll around. What the Knicks really need is to get to the postseason the way they did last spring: on the rise, healthy and aware of what they need to do to get through the playoff gantlet.
“Biggest thing is continue to coach them and tell them the truth,” Mike Brown said. “When we play well, like I told them just now, we were great in transition in the second half. Now we’ve got to continue trying to embrace the little things. And we’ve got to make sure we’re doing it in practice so it has carryover in the games.
“I’ll really jump their [butt] if I see the effort not there. To me, that’s a whole different thing. If we’re trying and trying the right way, sometimes you’ve got to fight through stuff like this to get yourself on track . . . We’re the only ones that can do something about it. There’s no light switch that we can just turn on and think we’re going to go win ballgames. Nobody is going to give us any of that. We have to be better with the little things until we start shooting the ball well.’’
As bad as it looks right now, the Knicks are mostly healthy — although they were missing Jose Alvarado on Sunday — and confident that they soon will get the pieces aligned. They needed only to look down the court to the Orlando bench to see what could be. Magic star Paolo Banchero is expected to be sidelined for four to six weeks with an ankle injury and they lost point guard Jalen Suggs with a leg injury in the fourth quarter, but under new coach Sean Sweeney, they still managed to scramble for a win.
By the time the Knicks’ locker room opened to the media after the game, it was almost empty. Drummond sat in front of his locker and calmly explained he had heard no reason why he didn’t play in the second half — although he was pulled right after he (and the rest of the Knicks) were slow to get back off a made basket and surrendered an easy layup to Wendell Carter Jr.
Brunson was the last one in the room and issued the same warning he provided when training camp commenced — last season is gone and this will let them know what they are.
“Find whatever it takes to win,” he said. “Control what we can control. Focus on the little details that might seem small but can impact winning. Most importantly, stick together. One thing I’ve said during training camp and to this day is we’re going to see who we are within the first couple weeks of the season. And we’re seeing adversity, so how are we going to respond?”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
