Years ago I was walking to a friend’s apartment late at night, less than a minute away, when I got jumped. I had headphones on, blaring, when the next thing I knew someone was choking me from behind. I tried pulling away; no luck, he was bigger than me, stronger. I tried telling I had no money (pocket change; less than a dollar). He wasn’t interested in conversation. He just kept squeezing.
I was a couple of feet in front of a brick wall, my back to it; him being behind me meant his was, too. I pulled forward one last time as hard as I could, straining against him, then threw all my weight backwards. We went flying smack into the brick, freeing me from his grip. Next thing he knew, I was jabbing a finger with a long and sharp nail into his eyeball. He’d come looking for trouble. He found some.
Ignoring the fourth quarter officiating being so criminally corrupt it must have been Trump-backed, the Knicks lost 130-121 last night in Indiana, falling behind 3-1 in the Eastern Conference finals. In what was their biggest game of the year, their biggest in 25, New York lost both halves while surrendering 130 points. The last two seasons, regular-season and playoffs, the Knicks have given up that many in regulation 12 times in 193 games, or 6% of the time. A third of those came against the Pacers.
When your back’s against the wall, your whole reality suddenly shrinks. Imperatives are all you can see. Fight? Flight? Delay? Ain’t no time for tradition. You reach for whatever’s within reach and you weaponize. For me, it was a brick wall.
Speaking of brick walls, after a potentially season-saving fourth quarter in Sunday’s Game 3 win where Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson were staggered, the Knicks went right back to having their two weakest defenders on the floor for most of the frame. Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride saw their combined minutes drop from 44 to 33. Should we talk? Let’s talk.
The Pacers are doing the same thing they did a year ago. They’re pressuring the Knicks for 48 minutes over 94 feet and it’s having a cumulative effect, because many hands make light work. And while Tyrese Haliburton is a frontrunner and a bully and a @#$%, he’s also an incredible player the Knicks have absolutely no answer for.
Remember when you got old enough to take standardized tests that asked for the “best possible answer”? That’s an entirely different level from being asked for the one right answer. There is no one right answer for stopping Penny Hardaway 2.0. But some are better than others. And fighting for your life while 40% of your five-man lineup might as well have “Kick me!” signs on their back while defending is Hobbsian sadomasochism: nasty, poor, brutish and short.
Saw an awful lot of Thibs bashing in the comments after the lost. I’m not here to condemn; you have every right to your feelings, particularly right after an L like this, a game the Knicks never lost sight of but never threatened to overrun like they did Sunday. I’m not here to tell you Tom Thibodeau is the one and only person who can lead this team to a championship. I’ve gone on the record with my feelings about that. But if I may, in the cool light of the morning after, point out something a number of us lose sight of repeatedly?
When the Knicks’ backs are to the wall, Thibs tends to step outside his usual boxes. He was never gonna play rookies; remember that? Never gonna bench Elfrid Payton in 2021. Never gonna play Julius Randle and Obi Toppin together. Last year he flat out publicly stated he was never gonna play Alec Burks in the playoffs, even as his team was losing one guy after another after another. This year the charge was he wouldn’t pair Towns and Mitch. Wouldn’t switch against the Celtics. Would never go more than seven-deep in the playoffs.
Dunno what the Knicks should do now. It’s easy to throw “Towns and Brunson need to be staggered!” out there from your recliner after it’s mostly worked for seven months; then again, a best-of-7 in May against Indiana is hardly a February night in Charlotte. Hard to imagine it happening, but why not start KAT on the bench? Help him stay out of early foul trouble while making Haliburton’s job at least a little more challenging.
I know, I know; All-NBA players making $50 million a year are nobody’s sixth men. Just like Mitch not shooting free throws underhanded slips a nice red-meat cocoon right over his masculinity, protecting it from all the meanies who might call him “granny.” But anything has to be better than the -7 rating the KAT/Brunson pairing put up in 26 minutes together. In 22 minutes with those two separated, the Knicks were +16! And it’s not like the Knicks haven’t employed legendary grandmas before.
A 7- to 8-man Knicks team that plays its two worst defenders 40+ minutes each is not going to stop a 10-man Pacers team committed to testing those weak spots. Not sure why the Knicks can’t run some kind of action to get Haliburton stuck defending someone besides Mikal Bridges in the post, someone bigger who can give him some bumps and bruising. I can’t offer you scientific proof for this, but you gotta trust me: Haliburton does not strike me as the kind of dude who steps up his game when he’s been pushed around a lot. That dude needs a fingernail to the eyeball in his life. Maybe several.
One more loss and it’s the offseason. One more win and the Knicks would be just one more win from one home win from the Finals. Will they try something new? Can they? Stay tuned, true believers.