The scary thing is that the Knicks did not play badly.
In fact, their attacking offense was as good as not better than the entire season.
Julius Randle was his usual handful. Newcomer sensation Immanuel Quickley was electric, and his game was called ‘crazy and fearless’ by Clippers star Paul George afterwards. And RJ Barrett was a mighty 23-point force.
“I liked his attitude,” said Kawhi Leonard, a free agent of Barrett. “The sky is the limit.”
These are the Knicks’ own Big 3 of Hope – 26, 22 and 20 years old respectively.
And although the Knicks went from toe to toe three and a half quarters with toe-to-toe and pulled within two points with 7:42 left after a flurry of Quickley baskets, it still wasn’t enough. Not nearly.
The Clippers of Paul George and Leonard are loaded, and look like championship material to beat the Knicks Sunday afternoon in the Garden 129-115.
Best team the Knicks have faced this season? Oh yes, said Randle, who piled up 27 points, 12 rebounds and five assists.
“Absolutely 100 percent, without a doubt,” said Randle, who has managed inside, outside and in between to run an All-Star campaign. ‘You can see that they are a team of championship caliber that we want to be. We put ourselves in position. At the end of the day, they are really good – they like them. ‘
Serge Ibaka’s out-of-season addition was a overlooked gem and he buried the Knicks with a three-pointer and a three-pointer game late on an offensive setback.
Former Knick Marcus Morris looks comfortable as a complementary Clippers bench instead of orange and blue’s number 1 option last year.
Morris struck a dagger in the left corner 3 in the fourth quarter on Sunday and finished with 11 points. Morris had three of the Clippers’ 17 3s that probably made Thibodeau stand up all Sunday night after the team arrived at his former workplace, Chicago.
Does Morris, which was traded by the February deadline last year, miss New York? Heck, no. He now regards the Garden as his stepping stone.
Morris went on to say that he plays for ‘the best staff’ in the NBA under the leadership of Tyronn Lue, who beat the Clippers 16-5 to the second-best record in the NBA.
“We have something going on,” Morris said. ‘I had my chance to show what I could do in New York. Everyone took note of it. I used the platform to get on a bigger stage. I’m here to compete for a championship. I want to be part of the team to win the first championship for the Clippers, and we strive for that.
The Knicks did the right thing last February to trade Morris for a late first turn that turned into Quickley, who dumped another 25 points from the bench within 27 minutes on Sunday.
Quickley faces his idol Lou Williams, shakes his hand and tells it to him. But Quickley was not intimidated. In the fourth, he grabs an offensive setback in the lane of his own 3-point miss and drives it, however. After that, he showed his respect to the Clippers.
“It takes everything to get you going,” Quickley said. “They made a lot of hard blows.”
Do not tell Thibodeau, who led the NBA’s top defense and 3-point defense. Thibodeau said the Knicks ” the closures were short ” on the three points. He also feels that they did not grab a handful of loose balls and long setbacks, which led to more Clipper 3s.
“Offensive, it was good,” Thibodeau said. “It was defensively not what we would have liked. [Scoring] 115 points should be good enough to secure a victory. ‘
After the game, the Knicks flew to snowy Chicago, where Thibodeau did his best job in five seasons as head coach, with a record of 394-255. Thibodeau lives in a high view of Lake Michigan and was a toast to the city. The fans loved him, though they could not cheer him on Monday and Wednesday over rugby with the Knicks.
Thibodeau is 9-12 in New York, but still deserves a lot of trust from the fans. This loss is not about coaching or rotations. (In the fourth quarter, he called two seconds with 17 seconds apart.) Pat Riley, Red Holzman and Jeff Van Gundy could not score the victory as the Clippers played.
“I spent a lot of time there and definitely enjoyed it,” Thibodeau said of Chicago. ‘It’s a wonderful city, good organization, a good tradition. I definitely enjoyed my time in Chicago. ”
With a core trio of Randle-Barrett-Quickley to work with, Thibodeau may have had pleasant times along the way, but the Clippers have shown that it is long.