The term Tom Thibodeau uses all the time, just about any game, win or loss, blowout or nail bite, is this: “Margin of error.”
The Knicks have very little of it. They have a delicate chemistry based on trust and tenacity, a belief that they are better as a whole than as individuals, that on one night they may care a little more about the other than the other, especially their defense.
But if you want to give that margin a human face, it’s easy to do.
He wears No. 30 on his jersey and he played in the NBA All-Star Game, and he’s become the most indispensable Knick. And with 6 minutes and 41 seconds to go in Tuesday night’s fourth quarter, Julius Randle went up for a short shot and had the great misfortune of firing over Dwight Howard.
Howard isn’t the force he used to be, but he’s still an imposing presence, still a physical force, that can still block someone’s shot. He was going to stuff these, okay, his third of the night, the 2168th of his career, 13th of anyone who’s ever played the game. But that was the secondary issue for Randle.
Gravity was number 1.
And Randle fell in a pile on the court, unable to break his fall, and landed squarely on his hip. At that point, you were allowed to see the rest of the season flash before your eyes. Randle isn’t a one-man show for the Knicks, but he’s the engine that makes everything else work, that makes everything else possible.
And he didn’t get up right away.
“You are very concerned when you see a player go down like this,” said Thibodeau a little later. “But he has a lot of toughness.”
He does. He did. He got up again. Thibodeau asked him if he should get out of the game. Randle shook that off.
“You hope for the best, because there’s really nothing you can do while you’re falling,” Randle would say. “At first it hurts. But then it went well. “
At the time, Randle had 18 points and 14 rebounds and, as was the case most nights, was largely responsible for the Knicks who had led the 76ers for much of the game. They were still leading with four, 87-83, when Randle sank to the floor. He was already clearly tired, showing the effects of the back-to-back business end.
Although he said he wasn’t bothered by the fall, it clearly didn’t help. He scored one point the rest of the way. He grabbed a rebound. The Sixers, even without Joel Embiid, had one last counterpunch and used that, and they would win the game 99-96, preventing the Knicks from splitting up this difficult four-game road trip that started the second half of the season.
“On back-to-back nights we took 1-2 east to the wire,” said RJ Barrett of the Knicks’ Nets / Sixers road parlay. “We have to learn from that.”
Randle was less enthusiastic: “I don’t believe in moral victories. It’s either a win or a loss for me. “
The good news for the Knicks is that Randle stayed upright the rest of the way, insisting the fall didn’t affect the rest of the game. Fair enough. Even without Embiid, the Sixers are a formidable outfit, and the Knicks had to be at their best for most of the night to have a chance. They had one. They took it. They move on.
“The games,” said Thibodeau, “keep coming.”
For most of the first half of the season, much of the east was a messy mess. But that is starting to change. The Heat is 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 on their calendars, they have to keep up. Above all, they must prevent catastrophe. They’re Already Broken: Mitchell Robinson, Elfrid Payton, Derrick Rose.
Losing Randle would be another thing. Losing Randle would be seismic.
So even one night when the Knicks lost, seeing Randle walk off the floor was a win. The season may not have started with playoff or play-in ambitions, but they are now on the table. They are part of the plan. But only if they can stay whole. And whole means that there is No. 30 on the floor.