The Knicks were embarrassed early and often, yet the biggest shame goes to the victors

The Knicks lost 144-122 last night in Los Angeles to the Clippers, in a game riddled with atrocities.

The first came in the first quarter. Five weeks ago, Clipper center Ivica Zubac was dominated by Mitchell Robinson when the teams met in New York. With Mitch now out till February, Zubac channeled his inner Chris Kaman, bullying the Knicks with 11 points in the opening frame. When the opponent’s fourth- or fifth-best starter is feasting on you like you’re barbecue chicken, you’re in for a long night. Zubac wasn’t even the night’s biggest bully.

That’d be the three musketeers masquerading as NBA refs. See, Hear and Speak No Evil all watched the first half while wearing black-and-Spencer’s-Gifts-font tinted glasses, because all the calls went the Clippers’ way. Allllllllllllllllllllllllllllll of them. Every time a Knick’s heart lub-dubbed, the whistle blew. Criticizing the officials after an L is one of the lowst forms of fandom. That doesn’t mean it’s never warranted. The Clippers went to the free throw line THIRTY TIMES in the first 24 minutes, including 22 in the second quarter alone. 

Then, as if to rub it in, the whistle went dead in the second half! Like there was some kind of judgement blackout, like their batteries ran out. Not a reduction in calls, but their sudden and absolute extinction. What happened? Did the Knicks run an emergency seminar during the break refreshing the players on what is and isn’t a foul? Did the Clippers themselves recognize the karmic imbalance they’d enjoyed, so they just stopped trying, desperate to restore the scales to balance? Would any NBA team voluntarily quit doing something that was so obviously working? Imagine Steph Curry deciding not to shoot threes anymore, or Nikola Jokić restricting himself to scoring and rebounds only, out of sympathy for their opponents. It’d never happen. So if the Knicks didn’t suddenly “remember” how to defend without fouling, and the Clippers didn’t suddenly quit trying, then the likeliest explanation for the refs’ reversal is . . . what? Striped guilt?     

Whatever the reason, it helped and it didn’t. New York gave up 67 points in the second half, sadly an improvement on the 77 they allowed in the first. But 67 points in a half is rubbish, even in the Age of the Three. The Clippers won all four quarters so handily the game was a runaway long before the benches emptied, long enough that both teams were able to give one player each their season debut. 

For the Knicks, that meant Fort Greene’s Taj Gibson donning the blue-and-orange for the first time in 20 months. Gibson’s last game as a Knick was the 2022 finale, when he was part of a three-man bench alongside Ryan Arcidiacono and Feron Hunt. The 38-year-old big man played fewer than 10 minutes a game in half of his appearances last season for Washington. He’s a pro’s pro, a favorite of Tom Thibodeau’s for good reason, but with Mitch slated to miss the next 25+ games the Knicks may need to throw Taj into the deep end sooner than later. Isaiah Hartenstein is a known quantity, and a positive one. On the other hand, Jericho Sims has played 10+ minutes 37 times the past two seasons and had a negative plus/minus 25 of them.

For the Clippers, the night marked the first appearance in an NBA game for Josh Primo since the fourth game of the 2022 campaign. Primo does not figure to figure much into this ultimatum of a season for the Clips. The team is owned by Steve Ballmer, a constantly mortifying ode to privilege; if capitalism incarnated as a person, Ballmer would be its overbite. He’s preparing to move his team into their own brand new arena, because if there’s one thing the people of Los Angeles need in this day and age, it’s another billion-dollar building to enrich the rich, one we’ll hear is outdated before today’s toddlers are old enough to die in tomorrow’s wars. Josh Primo is not even a dot on Ballmer’s radar.

It’s a big year for all the Clipper bold-faced names. Kawhi Leonard is running out of time to just be an incredible basketball player. Paul George is running out of time to make “Playoff Paul” a positive. James Harden is lucky he wasn’t named Pat or Pete or Predrag, or else he’d have to deal with the same alliterative barbs as George. Russell Westbrook arrived last season, played better than anyone but Kawhi and George seemed to think possible, and has since lost his starting job and role to Harden. With all the MVPs and individual honors this group’s collected, without at least reaching the Finals they’ll feel less like the Four Horsemen and more like the apocalypse itself. Josh Primo is likely not going to affect any of that.

Primo affects people we don’t see or root for. Like the former San Antonio Spurs’ sports psychologist who accused him of exposing his penis to her. This wasn’t a one-time incident, allegedly, nor was it restricted to one woman. Primo was disappeared from the public eye for a year, and now he’s back, and we are to trust that he spent this time away working intensively and introspectively on self-improvement. The NBA says so. We are to keep him in mind as the subject of this story. The women he harassed? They remain objects, their lives lived off our screens, their sufferings outside the margins of the box score. 

Mike Breen introduced Primo without a single mention of what made his entry significant. If an athlete misses a couple of games with knee soreness or a torn quad, it’s Broadcast TV 101 to mention that to the audience. On top of Primo’s victims having their bodily autonomy violated, they endure the second crime of being ranked beneath disembodied pains. An ankle’s out of sorts? That’s news. A woman is beaten? Don’t blink when Kevin Porter Jr. returns to action. 

See Miles Bridges welcomed back as if he’d been held hostage; when he says people will forgive him if he plays well, you’ll want to be outraged, but is he wrong? Ja Morant will be back any day now with dunks and highlights galore, and best believe the first time he puts up 20 and 10 in a win the Breens of the world will go on and on about growth, maturity, blah blah blah. Try to forget the entire Thunder organization responding to “Did one of your starters rape a minor?” with answers that said everything other than “No.” The league doesn’t care. Why should you? The Knicks play the Lakers Monday. There’s always another game. Always another memory hole. Triple-doubles. Buzzer-beaters. The NBA: it’s fan-tastic.