Is a win a win?
That was the question I found myself asking after the New York Knicks escaped the L̶o̶n̶g̶ I̶s̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ Brooklyn Nets 99-95.
No Cam Thomas, Dennis Schroeder and Dorian Finney-Smith shipped off to greener pastures, a team that has lost 17 of their last 20. By all accounts the Knicks should have won by 30.
The glass half full version is New York ultimately take care of business against bad teams sporting a 17-3 record in 20 games against sub-.500 opponents.
It just rarely looks as easy as it should in games where the Knicks have an immense and obvious talent advantage. I think back to the excitement we were all feeling this time a year ago when the Knicks were in the midst of a 14-2 January, and tying a historically dominant Boston Celtics team for the best net rating any team had in any month the entire season. And did it against elite competition beating the Wolves by 6, the healthy Sixers by 36, the Nuggets with Jokic by 38, the hated Heat by 16.
THAT is what a title contender is suppose to look like and this team while being very good by any reasonable standard has yet to hit the night to night dominance you see from the great ones.
There are a myriad of reasons for that, the frustrating part in trying to pinpoint solutions is that those reasons are rarely consistent.
A lot went right for the Knicks in this game. After their last 10 opponents had largely bombed away with startling accuracy and impunity from three the Knicks held the Nets to just 12 makes. OG Anunoby looked more like himself defensively than he has in in months any time he’s not playing the Raptors, with one particularly dismissive block on Cam Johnson being a highlight. He also poured in 20 points mostly around the rim including one really nice between the legs shoulder bump drive that was reminiscent of his fantastic stretch of aggression to start the season
Karl-Anthony Towns despite battling through a bone fragment in his thumb and in turn losing arguably his most potent weapon in his three point shot (0-3 last night, now 1-9 since returning from the injury) was dominant with 25 points, 16 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks consistently cleaning up misses against the undersized Nets.
Jalen Brunson was elite down the stretch after a poor shooting day scoring or assisting on 10 of the Knicks final 12 points.
Josh Hart had his usual litany of sports movie role player hero moments including a crucial rebound and time out while tip toeing the sideline and at 6'4 is not tied for the NBA rebounding lead in the month of January.
Yet the team was plagued by poor or non-existent boxouts on Nic Claxton giving up 10 offensive rebounds in the second half and largely horrid shooting in the fourth hitting just one field goal over the first eight minutes of the final quarter.
Tom Thibodeau also once again refused to lean into the bench that carried the Knicks to a lead in the 2nd quarter with Cam Payne again not seeing a minute in the 2nd half after another largely excellent 1st half stretch.
There’s no question this team has special components. Will they ever be a special whole? That’s still to be determined.
