The New York Knicks barely survived the final four games before Cancún due to a vacation until next Thursday, when NBA activity resumes after All-Star Weekend on Feb. 16-18.
It wasn’t nice, but New York lost their fourth consecutive game on Wednesday, 118-100, against the young, spry, and healthy Orlando Magic.
Not long ago, the New York Knicks had among of the worst starting lineups on the court. You only need to travel back exactly five years to recognize this fact.
There is no doubting that the Knicks’ recent lineups have been as bad as they can get. Outside of Jalen Brunson, who will appear on the ASW stage for the first time in his career this weekend, the men who have shared the court with JB for the most part since the calendar page changed to February are, well, poor at best, awful at worst.
Don’t get me wrong, however. I’m not saying Josh Hart isn’t a fantastic all-around player. Precious Achiuwa can give anybody and everyone a fit in the paint, and he’s been known to extend the floor on occasion. Donte DiVincenzo, who was ruled out before of Wednesday’s game, has been a walking fireball since taking over as a starter every night.
But consider what New York was/is missing: four starters (Julius Randle, OG Anunoby, Mitchell Robinson, and by extension Isaiah Hartenstein and DDV) and one reserve (Bojan Bogdanovic). Feel free to rearrange their roles as you see fit.
The active gameday roster includes G League players Jacob Toppin and Charlie Brown Jr., as well as Taj Gibson, a pension-plan applicant.
Jalen Brunson was once withdrawn from a game after “only” 35 minutes of play. But that is not the focus of this recap. Actually, by the end of the first quarter, New York had a nine-point lead. Following that initial promising development, Thibs implemented the reserves, and everything went south.
Orlando went on a 22-2 run, converting a 12-point Knicks lead into their own eight-point lead before calling it a day.
What happens when Brown Jr. (five minutes) and Gibson (nine) are two of your four second-unit players and both finish with zero points (at least Taj nicked a rock).
What happens when your other two backups are Young Toppin (17 minutes), who scores 11 points and grabs four rebounds, and Miles McBride (32 minutes), who is 2-of-11 from the field and scores eight points overall.
All starts except Achiuwa (some things never change, do they, Thibs? I logged between 30 and 39 minutes.
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