It looked like another enjoyable chapter in a surprising Knicks short story for a while. For a while, the Knicks shot every time they looked, defending them with their usual ferocity, and they were excited about the small but vocal contingent of Knicks fans at the Amway Arena of Orlando.
Eleven minutes into Wednesday’s game, Immanuel Quickley made some free throws.
The Knicks led the Magic, 32-21.
And .500 was so close that you could smell it. You can taste it. Look now: .500 is not for everyone. Breaking ground most of the time feels like the worst consolation prize. This is the definition of average. This is mediocrity. And there are few things that are less satisfying in sports than mediocrity.
Still: the Knicks have not been at .500 since 2017. They have not been at .500 on February 17 since 2013. It is a season of incremental steps and rises. Getting to .500 would have yielded no dramatic conclusions – and frankly, neither would have celebrated any of the Knicks.
But it’s something. And it was in sight.
And then, in a terrible, ghostly haze, it was not.
The Magic beat the Knicks, but well, 107-89 and surpassed them by 29 points over the last 37 minutes of the game, and more than a knockout, more than a buzzkill, it was a two-hour reminder of an essential truth about these Knicks: They do not have to play perfect basketball every night. They do not have to maximize every last skill on the roster.
But it is useful to be close by.
“They are a team like us that is scratching and clawing and trying to catch the playoffs,” Quickley said when the slaughter was complete. “Our energy was no longer where Orlando’s were.”
It was difficult to identify anything that the Knicks did well on Wednesday night apart from Julius Randle – and even his 25 points and seven rebounds felt muted. Much of the damage occurred in the first quarter.
Quickley slipped through the toughest night of his young career and missed on 11 of 12 shots. His running mate, Derrick Rose, with whom he established such an immediate and clear chemistry, was 1-for-10. Few teams can survive two key players shooting 2-for-21; for the Knicks, this is the boardwalk area.
Even coach Tom Thibodeau, who was normally impeccable, had some head-scratching moments. On a night when the Knicks’ bench (usually a reliable strength) could barely keep up with his own way, Thibodeau retained both RJ Barrett and Elfrid Payton – who combined for 28 points in three quarters, the only Knicks other than Randle to reported for service Wednesday night – tied to the bench.
He obviously had his reasons: ‘We were in such a hole, I was trying to find a way out, I wanted to see where it would go once it was 10’ [with just over six minutes left in the game], ”He said – and this is not the best way to guess Thibodeau, who worked most nights with a master stroke, on the other side.
That just did not happen for the Knicks. They missed 15 straight field goals at one point. They handed over 16 three-pointers to a team that generally could not shoot straight, and allowed Terrence Ross (30 points in 30 minutes off the bench) to bury them on a night when they were actually doing a good job did on the usual Knicks killer Nikola Vucevic (8-for-24 shooting, 0-for-7 of 3). Maybe it was as simple as Randle’s explanation:
“We just did not have it,” Randle said. “For whatever reason.”
They are now getting a few days of practice thanks to the postponement of Saturday’s Spurs game in the garden, and the extra training time is probably coming at a convenient moment. There are a lot of winning home games coming up. There will be other opportunities to reach the holy grail again, to hit 500, to float to sea level. It is still a worthy goal.
Next time, it’s going to be worth it.