It's been a rough go for the New York Knicks as of late. They've lost nine of their last 12 games dating back to New Year's Eve. This is not what a team vying for a championship should look like at all, and ESPN's Tim MacMahon called the Knicks out on a recent episode of Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective, critiquing their lack of effort in recent weeks.
"Let's not even talk about whether they're making shots," MacMahon said. "If you don't put forth more effort than they are, Mitchell Robinson looks like the only guy who's playing hard for them right now. There is a rot in the soul of this team right now. How else do you explain a team that is supposed to be a title contender going 2-9 with this bad of defense?
"And you've got the Mavericks coming into Madison Square Garden for a nationally televised game on MLK day, and that's the effort you put up? I mean, the Mavericks are missing two max players. The Mavericks who are limping toward a single-digit lottery pick, blew you out of your building in front of a national TV audience.
"This is a complete embarrassment for a team that fired their coach in the summer for the crime of not winning the conference finals that they got to. There are some real issues that are much deeper-rooted than shooting variance for the New York Knicks right now."
Tim MacMahon called out the Knicks' shocking lack of effort
What MacMahon is talking about here is exactly what fans in New York have been concerned about. And for the record, he is one hundred percent correct in his analysis. This team went into the season with unprecedented expectations, and right now they are far away from looking like who they know they can be.
With the Indiana Pacers missing their best player, the Knicks quickly came to be seen as a favorite to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this past offseason. For the first time in decades, we came into a season actually having reasonable expectations for New York to truly contend for a title. Unfortunately, this team looks far from being ready to achieve that lofty goal right now.
As MacMahon said, New York is lacking the heart of a champion right now. You can't come out expecting to win just based off talent in this league, and everyone in the locker room knows that. Not coming with the right mentality and focus night in and night out is going to lead to some head-scratching losses, and that's precisely what we've been seeing from this Knicks team.
It's not wrong for fans of this team to feel embarrassed right now. The Knicks have been looking like the lights are too bright for them as of late, and that wouldn't be such an issue if this were simply a young team trying to find their footing and seeing if they could steal a playoff spot. But it's the exact opposite of that scenario.
New York is supposed to be East favorites, and instead they've let the Boston Celtics lap them, with the Toronto Raptors right on their tails in the standings as well. If we don't see this group show more fight and heart between now and April, they're going to turn into one of the more disappointing first-round exits in recent NBA history.