Seconds after the final buzzer, the fake sound machine turned off and the yard was dead quiet – like the Knicks’ infraction.
It’s not a catastrophe. The Knicks still have five wins after nine games.
In 2019/20, the Knicks took their fifth win only during the 25th game of the season, and only after David Fizdale was fired and Mike Miller was promoted. Nonetheless, this smelled, it really smelled – this home loss from 101-89 Friday to Reconstruction, no-name Thunder.
In any case, this was a nightmare offensive, as empty as the blue seats after the Knicks won five of their last six. Perhaps it was seeing Miller as an assistant on the Oklahoma City sidelines that reminded them of last season’s loss.
Or maybe the Knicks just got tired legs after all the minutes their key players logged in. Yes, that’s considered the only concern about esteemed coach Tom Thibodeau.
RJ Barrett and Julius Randle were the top two in the NBA within minutes.
Randle looked too much like Randle from last season. He was held scoreless in the first half. In the fourth quarter, Randle lazily dribbled the ball upstairs and Queens pride Hamidou Diallo pulled the ball away from behind and ran to a lay-up for an 11-point Thunder lead.
Just before that, Diallo (who finished with 21 points and 11 assists) had tipped off his own miss. Longtime point guard George Hill had drifted untouched for a lay-up – which is too reminiscent of years past.
Each club entered the pandemic season and was seen as refueling and stocking pulls. Each team has defied low expectations, with the Knicks now 5-4 and the Thunder turning into a .500 team on Friday.
This was a crappy defeat to a club starting with guys like Darius Bazley and Luguentz Dort, who have the best name and body in the league, but are a defensive specialist. Dort daggered the Knicks in the fourth quarter with a game-sealing 3 pointer.
Also in the rotation of the Thunder is rookie Alexei Pokusevski, who entered the game with 9.5 percent, but hit two big 3-pointers in the last period.
Thibodeau’s Knicks had the best start to the franchise since 2012-13 went into the night.
ESPN’s new outspoken star, Kendrick Perkins, hailed the Knicks’ new onslaught as a key to their resurgence. But Perkins put the hex on the Knicks, which shot 35.8 percent off the Thunder.
Thibodeau said he felt that after the Knicks lost a lead in the first half, they stopped moving the ball.
“We’ve tried to come out individually,” said Thibodeau. “We started it together, we have to work it out together.”
Perkins was the center of the Celtics for three seasons when Thibodeau was Doc Rivers’ assistant coach in Boston.
“While he was in his two years off, he re-evaluated himself and came back as a different coach,” Perkins said on ESPN before Friday’s game. of the freedom they have on the offensive end – I’ve never seen a Tom Thibodeau team have so much freedom. But I love it. ”
Soon, Thibodeau will be credited with inventing the synthetic protein that is key to the new vaccine. Seriously, Perkins’ comments on national TV deserve closer scrutiny before confirming its truth.
They play at a faster pace, hit 3-pointers with greater efficiency, and move the ball better than they did under Jeff Hornacek, Fizdale and Miller.
But as for X’s and O’s and more freedom? They were still ranked 28th in the scoring average (104 ppg) ahead of Friday’s brick-a-thon. Their offense will continue to be an issue and they will need the injured, loving swingman Alec Burks sooner rather than later.
Players who joined the pairing, such as Austin Rivers and Immanuel Quickley, were not on Friday. Rivers even missed a 3-point shot in the fourth quarter.
And Quickley looked like a second-round pick – finally. Quickley had his worst night as a pro – going 1-for-9 and nearly breaking the board on too hard a floater.
“I can still see nice vanilla on that end,” said former Wizards, Hawks and Raptors scout Bryan Oringher, who wove a two-part scout review of the Knicks’ offense and defense on his YouTube channel on Thursday. . ”
Randle has been a different player after his long off-season boot camp in Dallas. Randle defended it and tore it up offensively, with All-Star numbers of 23.1 points, 12 rebounds and 7.4 assists for Friday’s filthy-plagued dud.
“We weren’t playing for each other at either end of the floor,” said Randle.
Still unsure whether this is the ‘fluky’ Randle or some new Randle moving forward, Oringher says the Texas left-handed has played ‘out of his mind’.
“He’s doing what he did last year,” Oringher said. “He’s just doing better.”
Thibodeau has shown that he can stick with the right players in the fourth quarter – a cardinal sin for Fizdale. But on Friday those players looked tired, especially Barrett.
The painful question is whether this is the start of a trend.