As we headed to the All-Star break, the New York Knicks are currently 7 games away to make the playoffs, so there’s a real chance to avoid a seventh year without a playoffs appearance. But should the Knickerbocker be chasing one of the last playoffs spots with 27 games to play?
The answer NO! In fact, today the New York Knicks could be the eighth or even the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, but his lack of concentration, mistakes and poor shot selections, have them thirteenth in the East.
Unfortunately for all the Knickerbockers fans around the world, their squad have not found the balance needed to be a playoff team. Maybe one of the main reasons why the Knicks are struggling to find that balance this season is that most of the players have not play together before.
If we compare with the last year roster, only five players stay with the team this season; Dotson, Knox, Ntilikina, Smith Jr, Trier and Robinson. Only Mitchell has had a good amount of minutes per game, and don’t even him is considered as a starter. Four of the starting players are new in the Big Apple: Julius Randle, Taj Gibson, RJ Barrett and Marcus Morris arrived to the team this year. Of course, Morris is no longer with the team, but his place is filled with Reggie Bullock, another new player in the team.
As a result, this season the New York Knicks has had plenty of heartbreaking losses, and the most recent sample are the last two games, against the Hawks on Sunday and Wizards on Wednesday.
On Sunday, the New York Knicks somehow found their way back after being 16 points down, tying the game with 30 seconds to play. They actually had the opportunity to win the game, but Julius Randle missed the shot with 1.2 seconds on the clock, fortunately, Trae Young missed the floating too and the game went to overtime.
In the first overtime, the Knickerbockers took an eight points lead with 1:30 to play, but since that moment, they couldn’t score again. Three missed shoots, one turnover and the impossibility to stop Trae Young (7 points in that span), caused the game to go to second overtime, where the Hawks didn’t make the mistakes the Knicks made and kept the victory.
On Wednesday, it was really frustrating to watch the New York Knicks turning a winnable game into 18 points loss. The crash began with Bobby Portis, who went from had no fouls to recorded four in six minutes (three offensives), after that, he added two technical fouls finally be ejected from the game. From that moment, with nine minutes to play and only three points down, the team lost concentration and everything went downhill.
In that same span, the Knickerbockers scored 6 of 13, turned the ball over 7 times, committed another two technical fouls (Randle and Payton) and were outscored 34-19 to finally lose the game.
Those are just two samples of how the New York Knicks can shot themselves on his foot and break their fans heart, but like I said, that’s just two of 16 times they’ve done it this year. So, let’s make a quick recap of the other 14 heartbreak losses:
New York Knicks Recent Heartbreak
- Oct 25, at Nets: 109-113
- Knicks up by 3 with 1.15 minutes to play
- Didn’t score again (missed 4 shots)
- Turn the ball over twice in that span
- Nov 1, at Celtics: 102-104
- Tied at 102 with 4.7 seconds
- Jason Tatum put the Celtics up by 2 with 1.3 seconds
- Julius Randle with a bad pass and the game was over
- Nov 16, vs Hornets: 103-102
- Knicks up by 4 with 33 seconds to play
- Julius Randle missed last 2 shots (including game winner with 2.1 seconds)
- Nov 20, at 76ers: 104-109
- Knicks up 17 with 3 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter
- Outscored 27-49 in the last 15 minutes (9 of 23 FG | 8 turnovers)
- Nov 23, vs Spurs: 111-104
- Came back for a 28 points deficit
- Close the game to 7 points with 3 minutes to play
- Made only 2 of the last 8 shots.
- Nov 24, vs Nets: 103-101
- Knicks came back of a 14 points deficit with one minute to play
- Down by 3 points, missed 3 of 5 shots and fall by 2
- Nov 29, vs 76ers: 101-95
- Knicks were up for as many as 16 points
- Down by 1 with 2 minutes to play
- Outscored 11-6 in the last 2 minutes (3 of 6 FG | 1 Tunrover)
- Dec 7, vs Pacers: 104-103
- Knicks down by 2 with 1:30 to play
- Missed the last 5 shots
- Randle missed last free throw to tie the game
- Dec 23, vs Wizards: 121-115
- Knicks down by 5 with 1 minute to play – Missed 5 of the last 6 field goals
- Jan 3, at Suns: 112-120
- Knicks down by 3 with 4 minutes to play. Missed 8 of 10 and 2 TO
- Jan 5, at Clippers: 132-135
- Knicks down by 4 with 1 minute to play
- Unable to stop Lou Williams and lost by 3
- Jan 18, vs 76ers: 90-87
- Knicks down by 3 with 5 minutes to play
- Scored just 6 points (3 of 9 FG | 2 TO)
- Jan 24, vs Raptors: 118-112
- Tied with 4 minutes to play
- 4 turnovers
- 2 uncontested baskets from Paskal Siakam (driving shot and 3pt shot)
- Jan 28, at Hornets: 92-97
- Knicks down by four with 1 minute to play
- 3 of 7 FG and 1 TO
(Photo by Paul Bereswill/Getty Images) But to think that they could’ve won all of those 15 games would be crazy, so let’s think about 7 wins out of those 15 games. Right now with 24 wins the New York Knicks would be the seventh seed in the East, over Magic and Nets, and just under the Pacers. Anyway, after all the downs and the little ups, today the Knickerbockers have a chance to make the playoffs, but to end that 7 years streak without a playoff appearance with a team like this would be something good?
I know that fans opinion is divided, because some of them it don’t care about how the Knicks make the playoffs, they only want to watch them playing more than 82 games; but for some others, it is not worthy to make the playoffs if you are not able to compete.
Truth is that both kind of visions are acceptable, but to be honest, the New York Knicks don’t need to make the playoffs this year (if they reach them, great, but shouldn’t be an obsession). What the Knicks have to do is to work in the little details that have affected the results every night, because even throughout the 4 games winning streak, there were a lot situations that could’ve turned all of those wins into defeats.
And if you wonder what are details that i am talking about, the answer is easy: concentration, understand the moment of the game, manage the game clock correctly, make better shots selections, be unselfish and improve the free throws effectiveness. This is the details that made them lose those 15 games, that have them 13th place in the conference (instead of 7) and out of the playoffs today.