Kemba Walker exploded early, but the starters once again faltered late, offering the Hornets a chance to come back at home that they gladly took on their way to a win over the Knicks.

Detective mysteries are the opposite of recaps. With a recap, the reader knows how the story ends before they start reading. The whole point of a detective story is the ending, the mystery resolved. I’ve recapped hundreds of Knicks games. The joy of recapping is playing with the tension between what’s known and what you can spin for the reader to create some unknown. After the Knicks’ 104-96 loss in Charlotte last night, I gotta come clean. I got nothing. I’ve watched the game twice now, and whatever the hell happened remains a mystery.

The angst entering the contest was the play of the starters, which has been a big fat negative this season. 

Kemba Walker has been the subject of much of the scrutiny, and he responded to it, stating that the struggles are “really on me. I think I can help my teammates be better at the start of games.” In the early going, Kemba’s word was his bond.

The former Hornet great erupted for 13 points at the midpoint of the opening quarter. He finished the frame with 17 on 4-5 from deep. As a reminder that it’s not only important to know where you stand in life, but where you came from: Kemba has scored 17-plus in a third of the Knicks’ games this season. Last year, Elfrid Payton scored 17-plus not even half as often, and he never made four 3-pointers in any game. 

The Knick starters blitzed their way to a 16-point lead in the first, all without a single point from Julius Randle, who was exclusively in distributor mode; despite not scoring, his rating was +16. The Knicks were hot from long range, the defense held Charlotte to 18 in the first and forced three shot-clock violations in the first 13 minutes. The starters were tremendous. The bench always plays well. The game was in the bag, yes? No. No, no.

If there’s been any continuity this year with this team, starters or reserves, it’s that they tend to live and die by their offense, which lives and dies by the 3-point shot. After hitting seven of their first 10 from distance, the Knicks cooled off. Meanwhile, the Hornets missed 12 of 13 from deep, then heated up. 

Still, even with that, and with Randle and Barrett combining for just nine first-half points, New York led by 14 with 90 seconds left before intermission and nine at the break, and the starters who built that huge lead in the first place were back out there. The game was in the bag, yes? No. No, no.

Gordon Hayward ripped off a 7-point flurry to open the second half, helped in part by Randle and Evan Fournier playing “can you top this turnover?” It took the home team just 100 seconds to turn a 9-point deficit into a tie game. Meanwhile the visitors weren’t just missing shots, they were missing badly. Randle nearly shattered the backboard bricking a 3-pointer, and Kemba cooled off to the point that air-balled a pull-up in the paint. A pretty big clue to how this mystery would end came when LaMelo ball threw up what looked like a 15-foot alley-oop that ended up banking off the glass for two. In seven minutes, the Hornets went from down nine to up 10.

Meanwhile, Tom Thibodeau left the starters in despite the collapse. For 10 minutes he left them in. I support that practice as a general rule; Phil Jackson used to do it all the time. Maybe it’s a smarter play when you’re letting Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman figure it out, though? The Knicks needed most of the quarter to reach 10 points. No mystery as to what happened once the reserves rejoined — it was the usual rejoinder.

For most of the fourth quarter, the bench kept the game within reach. The score was 93-93 with under four minutes left when Thibodeau went back to Randle, RJ, and Walker. These are the facts of the case from that point on:

• Kelly Oubre hit a top-of-the-key 3-pointer.

• Randle committed an offensive foul.

• Clyde Frazier praised the teams’ relentless pace and energy. 

• Kemba front-rimmed a 3-pointer.

• Clyde announced both teams were playing with dead legs.

• Miles Bridges spun and scored past Randle.

• Alec Burks made a layup.

• Bridges made a driving and-one vs. Randle.

• Quickley missed from deep; Randle kept the possession alive; Kemba’s inbounds pass was stolen by Ball, who went the length of the floor for a lay-up.

• Randle drew a shooting foul and missed both free throws.

• Kelly Oubre, bless his heart, could not or would not accept the canonical belief that a team up eight with under a minute left should run clock rather than push for points. He turned it over.

• Randle drew a shooting foul and missed the first free throw.

• Oubre took a wide-open 3-pointer with 17 left on the shot clock and less than 40 seconds on the game clock. Michael Jordan raged in the owner’s box like Zeus seething atop Olympus. If MJ could throw lightning bolts, Oubre would’ve been dead.

• Barrett drives, gets his shot blocked by Hayward. Out of bounds off of RJ.

Those are the facts. Who’s to blame? The starters who built a big lead, only to piss it away later? Thibodeau for sticking with them too long, or not playing the bench the whole fourth quarter, or not subbing his starters back quickly enough, in light of the bench growing tired and the starters needing time to get back in rhythm and salvage what they started? The offense, for being 3-happy on a night they missed 23 of their last 26 from deep while making over 50% of their 2-pointers? The free-throwing shooting, where New York missed a third of their 24 attempts? Jarrett Jack, whose competence at the point in an otherwise lost campaign four seasons ago may have cost the Knicks Luka Dončić?

Is there any point in appointing blame at all? Charlotte was rolling along quite nicely last year before LaMelo missed 21 games with a wrist fracture, and they’re only a half-game behind the Knicks this season. Does losing on the road to a team on your level warrant judgment? To me, that remains a mystery.

Notes

• Randle’s turnover percentage is actually fractionally down from last season. So why do I feel like we’re seeing more and more of that dribbling into the teeth of the D thing we were all so tired of two years ago?

• Twelve points, a career-high 17 rebounds, nine assists and five steals for Ball. I worried about him coming into the league. I’m not worried anymore, and in fact he’s about as fun a player to watch as anyone right now. Everything he does happens with pace, intent and the slightest bit of mustard. That dude is tailor-made to ball in NYC. 

• Twenty-four, four, and four for Bridges, who’s averaging 21.5 points and 7.3 rebounds a game. Bridges was the 12th pick in the 2018 draft. Three slots earlier, the Knicks chose Kevin Knox. In their last 40 games, including the playoffs, the Fortnite Mamba has 30 DNPs and hasn’t played 10 minutes in any of the 10 games he did get into. The Knicks used consecutive lottery picks on Knox and Frank Ntilikina. As long as we’re assigning blame…...

• Fournier is sneaky-good at corralling rebounds that are just about to go out of bounds. A Westbrookian trait if ever there were.

• Randle made a beautiful behind-the-back pass on the push to Fournier in the corner. He could’ve launched the 3-pointer, but pump-faked and ended up not shooting. It wasn’t necessarily a bad decision; it wasn’t a super-clean look. But if you, like me, watch the game for the drama and emotional highs, Fournier is sometimes a bit of a downer.

• Mitch went to the locker room early, hobbling after appearing to injure himself stepping on Ball’s foot. He returned soon after, but, like, can Knick big men getting banged up every night give it a rest?

Quoth Thibs: “...it’s a bunch of bullshit.” He said that before last night’s game in response to the starters publicly stating it’s still early in the season and they’ll figure things out. As Yogi Berra said, it’s getting late early. This team was 5-1 not too long ago, headed home for what felt like a formality against a depleted Raptors team on the path to 6-1. Instead they’re 7-6. We don’t like that, but does it rise to the level of a concern? Even with this L, going back to last season, the Knicks have been .500 or better for 32 games in a row. Does this team deserve some credit, or at least patience? Given that they spent so much of last season just a few games over or under .500, are they actually behind wherever they should be? It’s a mystery to me. The Knicks head home for a three-game home stand with three winnable games, starting Monday vs. the Pacers. What will happen then? Your guess is as good as mine.