The New York Knicks have come back down to earth after spending most of the season as a top five offense with the heart and soul of their team Jalen Brunson being out of the lineup.
With their All-Star captain on the shelf due to a right ankle sprain, which he suffered against the Los Angeles Lakers, they have struggled to put the ball in the hole and buckets have come fewer and far between.
After the shorthanded San Antonio Spurs, who are without Victor Wembanyama and Darion Fox, ran the Knicks off the Frost Bank Center floors, leading by as many as 28 points in a 120-105 victory on Wednesday night, New York fell to eighth-worst in offensive rating in the six games Brunson has missed since exiting in overtime of the March 6 loss.
The Knicks offense stagnated once again in their seventh game without the captain, in the second half of a road back-to-back on Thursday, failing to reach the hundred-point mark in a 115-98 loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
The Knicks have now dropped six of their last nine games, including their first two of the season against the bottom feeders of either the Eastern or Western Conference standings. Mitchell Robinson, sitting out the second game of a back-to-back, is one of the reasons the defense allowed the Hornets to have a field day in the paint, scoring 50 points.
But the inability to generate quality looks on the offensive end rears its ugly head when the Knicks dig themselves in an unsurmountable hole and struggle to shoot themselves out of it.
Embed from Getty ImagesJosh Hart, who is a Swiss army knife for the team, talked about his team’s offensive struggles after Wednesday’s loss in San Antonio.
“I think it’s a combination of [shots] not falling, but also we have to make it easier for each other,” Hart said. “We have to play-make for each other and put each other in good positions to be successful.
“We knew that was gonna be the struggle without JB,” Hart told reporters in San Antonio. “But we’ve gotta make the game easier for each other.”
Similar to what he did against the Spurs, Karl-Anthony Towns caught fire early and finished with a double-double, 24 points and 10 rebounds on 10-of-21 shooting from the field. OG Anunoby scored a team-high 25 points, but the Knicks got just seven points from their bench, five from Cameron Payne and two from Precious Achiuwa, before third-stringers Anton Watson and MarJon Beauchamp recorded field goals in mop up duty.
It was a balanced effort for the Hornets, having five players who scored in double figures, led by 25 points and eight assists from LaMelo Ball, plus double-doubles each from Miles Bridges (15 points, 10 rebounds, four assists) and Mark Williams (19 points, 14 rebounds, three blocks), DaQuan Jeffries (14 points) and Nick Smith, Jr. (13 points) also reached double figures.
For the second consecutive night, the Knicks were manhandled on the glass, this time a 52-38 margin swinging in favor of the Hornets after the Spurs, who played 6-foot-8 Jeremy Sochan as starting center, took the rebounding advantage, 52-44.
“That was a big concern. Big. Particularly because they started the game small,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said after the Spurs loss. “And I thought our reaction to the ball wasn’t great, and they’re athletic and quick, so we’ve gotta make sure we put a body on it, but it’s — we were behind all night. It’s better to initiate contact rather than react to it.”
The Knicks came into Thursday’s matchup, scoring 111.7 points per 100 possessions since Brunson went down. That mark was down 6.2 points per 100 possessions through the first 62 games of the season. It careened even more after the Knicks shot 40% from the field and 25.6% (10 of 39) from 3-point range in Charlotte.
And with Brunson out of commission until right before the playoffs in early April, the Knicks need to dig deep inside themselves to find their offense. New York has a little room to play with, having a four-game cushion over the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers and there are five games separating seeds 5 (Milwaukee) and 6 (Detroit Pistons) from the Knicks in the standings.
The Knicks host another team in the bottom-four on Saturday, Jordan Poole and the Washington Wizards, who own the worst record in the NBA.
The Hornets travel to Oklahoma City to play the No. 1 team in the west, the Thunder on Friday.
