The Knicks got out to a double-digit lead, Obi Toppin was playing great, yada yada yada, the Knicks are back to a game under .500.

This game went really great for about the first 16-18 minutes.

Things started off rowdy in Madison Square Garden. As usual (lately), around 2,000 fans were allowed into the World’s Most Famous Arena, and it was pretty clear from the pregame introductions into the game itself that they were not happy to see Kristaps Porzingis again:

It seemed like Porzingis wasn’t too excited to be back in MSG, either. Or maybe he was too excited? I dunno. At any rate, he sucked early — he went 2-10 in the first half, including a particularly ugly 1-7 in the first quarter that saw him brick four 3-pointers in nasty fashion.

And it wasn’t just Porzingis that was screwing up — so, too, were the Mavs, and so, too, were the Knicks.

As is often the case lately, the Knicks’ starting unit came out flat. Before Immanuel Quickley and Alec Burks replaced RJ Barrett and Reggie Bullock towards the end of the first quarter, the score was a typically robust 20-19 in favor of the Mavs with just over two minutes left in the quarter. Quickley and Burks would hit back-to-back threes to close the quarter, giving the Knicks a 25-20 advantage after one.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the two other Mavs screw-ups of the first quarter, considering they pretty much left any bad play there and didn’t look back:

With the turn to the second quarter, the fun REALLY began. I have no idea what got into him, but Obi Toppin was an absolute madman in this one.

First, Obi worked Luka baseline, getting in for a tough layup:

Then, he took Nicolo Melli inside for an and-1 finish:

And, finally, the capper of Obi’s offensive performance, a thunderous put-back dunk snatched right from Kristaps’ waiting hands:

He didn’t stop there, though! Before he got yanked for a Julius Randle shift change, Obi made a really nice defensive play as well:

(Not pictured, he also got a nice pull-up jumper to go from midrange.)

That was it for Obi, and his nine points on 4-5 shooting in the second quarter would wind up being his scoring line for the entire game. But still, I’d argue it was easily the best performance of Obi’s young career. If he can learn to start creating separation without just blatantly pushing off on people (something he’s been whistled for a lot thus far thanks to his lack of lower body strength), I think this game showed that he has enough blow-by ability from the perimeter to make it happen.

And then the starters slowly started filtering back in, a 13-point Knicks lead at the seven-minute mark turned into a 3-point Mavs lead at half, yada yada yada, the Knicks lost.

I promise you, I did not yada yada over the best part. Well, maybe other than forgetting the clip of Taj Gibson blocking a KP three, a shot that, when he was a Knick, I would’ve proudly boasted was nearly unblockable:

Notes

— There are no notes for this game, there is only pain. I’m not even doing any sort of recap quote. Those are for winners. Or at least fun games.

— No honestly, there could be notes if I felt like writing them out, but the main thing is this: the Knicks stink right now. They can’t put together 48 minutes of quality basketball if their lives depended on it. A lot of that has to do with Thibs’ confusingly rigid rotations. Some people want to chalk it up to fatigue. Others might say that Elfrid Payton’s lack of shooting isn’t letting the team get off to good starts. Immanuel Quickley is clearly hitting the rookie wall. RJ Barrett has gone cold again. Julius Randle is reverting to some of his worst 2019-20 tendencies. No matter what, there can’t be excuses if this team wants to be a playoff team this year.

I’d say they’re comfortably going to make it, but these last few games have felt different from previous losing streaks. Those earlier streaks, they were right in the games. Think those games against the Nets and Philly a couple weeks ago. But since then… things have been rough. Even the Knicks’ two most recent wins saw them struggle to beat teams that were inferior to them. During this current three-game streak, the Knicks’ tendency to abandon the team basketball that generally wins them games in favor of iso-heavy crap has been concerning.

Anyway, tonight’s going to be really telling. If the Knicks lay down to the Pistons and let themselves drop two games below .500 before games against Brooklyn, Boston, and Memphis, maybe dropping out of the playoff picture won’t be that ridiculous after all. Hopefully that’s not something that needs to be entertained, and the Knicks can finally get their shit together against one of the worst teams in the East.