Are the New York Knicks beginning to turn a corner?
By James Ryder
The New York Knicks’ latest loss came at the hands of the Bulls in Chicago on Sunday night, 109-103. As the score suggests, it was certainly a winnable game, just like many of the team’s losses this season.
While the defense did its best to contain the talented Bulls offense without both Mitchell Robinson and Taj Gibson, in the end, Chicago made their shots while the Knicks did not.
From a scoring standpoint, it sounds like it was just another day for the Knickerbockers. However, that wasn’t the case. A beacon of hope was displayed in the form of Julius Randle, who finally broke out of his slump by carrying the offense all night long. Randle finished with a very efficient 34 points (13/19 shooting, 7/8 on free throws).
Are the New York Knicks starting to figure it out?
The 34 point outburst by Randle came just a day removed from what seemed to be another broken slump. Evan Fournier put together a 19 point game in which he sunk 5 3-pointers to help New York defeat the Houston Rockets 106-99 on Saturday evening.
For roughly three weeks and 12 games now, we have been waiting for the Knicks offense to wake up from this nightmare. Although the entirety of their bench has been more than admirable during this grueling stretch, the starters have done very little to score and even defend in a way that gets W’s.
Yes, Randle’s heroics came to no avail in the Windy City and Fournier’s resurgence still needed the aid of 17 fourth quarter points from Alec Burks just to barely beat a pathetic Rockets squad. However, this could be the makings of a significant turnaround for the team.
The return of Nerlens Noel (3 blocks vs CHI), along with the plausible revival of Randle and Fournier, point towards better days ahead. However, the Knicks need to see even more changes if they plan on making this the moment they reclaim the season.