The New York Knicks have lost nine of their last 11 games and are in the midst of their second four-game losing streak of the season. It feels terrible for fans who just recently allowed themselves to get excited over the team's championship expectations. Josh Hart revealed after practice on Tuesday that it doesn't feel great for players either, especially when their fans refuse to let their displeasure with a general lack of effort go unheard.
Boos at Madison Square Garden resonated with Hart, Knicks
The 30-year-old Swiss Army knife returned early from an ankle injury to try and help propel the Knicks to a victory. They ended up losing to an incredibly short-handed Dallas Mavericks team. The deficit grew to as large as 30 before halftime, with fans booing the team at the break as they headed to their locker room.
After team practice the next day, Hart told reporters that the vibes at practice weren't great.
"It felt like ass. We just got embarrassed. We got booed on our home court. It’s not more embarrassing than that. And we’ll see how we respond tomorrow," Hart told media.
The Knicks have an opportunity to start turning things around on Wednesday night, when they play the Brooklyn Nets. The crosstown opponent will enter the matchup with a 12-29 record, indicative of their young roster and desire to stockpile assets before assembling a group of players they expect to win games.
Knicks can't lose 'trap game' to Nets on Wednesday
New York has to be careful. They can't take anything for granted right now, even if their next opponent is a team that declared openly ahead of the season that they would not be trying to win many games. Hart doesn't care. He knows the Knicks have things to handle internally, regardless of who's sitting on the visitors' bench.
"How we’ve been playing has not been up to our caliber and like I said, embarrassing. We have to fix that, no one’s gonna fix it for us. We gotta dig ourselves out of the hole that we made. We have the capability of doing it but now we have to stop talking and go out there and do it," the veteran told reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The Knicks won their first game after the NBA Cup because superstar point guard Jalen Brunson came through in crunch-time. Head coach Mike Brown has identified the post-Cup stretch as the beginning of the team's recent problems, showing that winning might not necessarily cure all.
Brown was brought in to improve the process of a team already producing solid results. Growing pains were always going to be a roadblock in that journey. But it's time for New York to find some clothes that fit and simply throw an outfit together. They can get back to high-fashion once the wins start to pile back up.