The Knicks are back, and not in a good way. Against their cross-river rivals, the Knicks and Tom Thibodeau fell prey to bad habits and ultimately lost a game they had a shot in down the stretch.

And with that, the road trip from hell finally ends. After another close loss to the crosstown rival Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks end the road trip going a respectable 3-4 (six of the seven games came against playoff teams). The Knicks may have played themselves out of the play-in race, but there are many positives to take away from this road trip. What are they? Let’s dive in.

A slew of familiarity

The Knicks started the game with the gusto of a sloth, which has become par for the course for this team. Despite a quick 13-2 deficit, Tom Thibodeau held his ground and rode out the starters, as he is wont to do. Led by a fast Evan Fournier start, the Knicks clawed their way back into the game and got as close as four, before settling in at a five point deficit to end the first quarter.

If you’ve begun to pick up a pattern, it’s likely because there is one. While injuries have forced Thibodeau’s hand regarding certain rotational decisions, the crux of his game-to-game strategy has largely remained the same. Regardless of how the unit is playing, we rarely see a substitution in the first seven minutes of a half. And after a short sting of using RJ Barrett as the primary engine of the starting unit, Thibodeau has reverted to using Randle as the main hub. This results in minimal ball movement and an abundance of two-man actions between Randle and Fournier or Alec Burks. In short, the team is not learning anything new, which makes it difficult to analyze. As a reader, do you really want me to break down why Burks is not a starting point guard in the NBA for the zillionth time?

Picking up with events we’ve seen before, the Knicks started the second quarter with Barrett playing with four bench players. In 90 seconds, led by Barrett and Immanuel Quickley, the Knicks got three shots within two feet of the basket, one more than they got the entire first quarter. The pace quickened, and the movement on both ends was crisper. And after trailing the entire first quarter, the Knicks’ bench put the team out in front. There were contributions across the board. Neither Quickley nor Deuce McBride had much of a shooting rhythm, but both were distributing (they had six of the team’s 27 assists despite combining for just 36 minutes) and flying around defensively. Obi Toppin returned from his five-game absence with some versatile defense himself, as well as knocking down two threes. 

Jericho Sims was the headline, though. While Nets center Andre Drummond gave Mitchell Robinson some trouble, Sims filled in admirably. He was commanding the glass on both ends (10 rebounds in 23 minutes), made the shots he was asked to take (3-3 from the field), and protected the paint. The Knicks outscored the Nets in the minutes he played by 20 points. Which brings us back to Thibodeau. With three minutes left in the first half and Robinson laboring, Thibodeau decided to insert Taj Gibson into the game. Sims was not in foul trouble and had been out of the game for over six minutes of gameplay. He was ready to go. More importantly, he deserved to go. But Thibodeau saw his team getting trounced on the offensive glass and turned to the guy he trusted the most. The Knicks lost the two minutes Gibson played by six. The Knicks lost the game by three. 

Can I absolutely guarantee that the Knicks win if they go to Sims instead of Gibson? Of course not. But this is why Thibodeau ultimately needs to be shown the door. He continuously creates self-fulfilling prophecies by only doing things one way. Do we know the 2020-2021 Knicks would have been better if Elfrid Payton was removed from the rotation? No. Do we know this year’s team could have been better had any number of decisions been made differently? No. All we know is what Thibodeau continues to hammer home: he’s putting the guys out there he thinks give the team the best chance to win. If only the results actually reflected that.

What the Knicks don’t have

Ultimately, this game came down to one player — Kevin Durant. Durant is one of the best players the NBA has ever seen, and he showed it again Sunday afternoon. I thought the Knicks’ game plan to stop him, especially down the stretch, was admirable. The execution wasn’t bad, either. Led by Randle and Barrett, the Knicks were committed to making his life as difficult as possible, throwing multiple defenders at him each time down the court. But Durant has an ability to render even the best schemes effectively null. When he rises and hits his apex there are very few who can contest him. In fact, Robinson made one of the plays of the game when he met Durant at the peak and blocked his 3-point attempt. The response in the building was one of shock and awe. Nobody does that to him!

Watching this game made it evident that Durant represents what the Knicks don’t have: a genuine superstar. The Nets were without three of their best players — Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons, and Seth Curry, for various reasons — yet just Durant was enough. We can squabble about rotation decisions or what plays should be run for who, but at the end of the day, it is talent that wins in this league. 

Finishing like they started

To cap off a game of familiarity, the Knicks, riding their veteran starters, were unable to score down the stretch of a close game. If you go back and watch the Clippers game, there is a clear effort to run more team-oriented offense in the fourth quarter. It seemed as though the Knicks turned a corner. But these past few games have seen the Knicks right back where they were in the frustrating collapses against Portland and Oklahoma City. 

The Knicks’ futility down the stretch of games is a tree with three primary roots. The first, one I mentioned above, is unfixable; the team lacks the offensive talent to break down good half court defenses. But the other two reasons are fixable. First, the Knicks do everything in their power to slow the game down. Not only do they cease every and any attempt at creating transition opportunities, but they typically burn much of the shot clock on each possession. Second, the team rarely runs complicated schemes with movement. Most of the time, Thibodeau calls up his favorite play — a single pick-and-roll between Burks and Randle that allows Randle to force a switch and go to work.

As an avid NBA watcher, I understand this particular issue isn’t necessarily unique to the New York Knicks. Most NBA offenses devolve to isolation late in games. Part of that is due to a more focused defense, part because teams trust their superstars to take them home. So, despite a slow season for Randle, on some level I understand Thibodeau putting the game in Randle’s hands.

But there is a middle ground that exists here. For starters, even 2020-2021 Randle would fall in the lower tier of the “best player on a team” list. And the action the team runs to get Randle the ball in these situations is incredibly simple, and can occur late in the shot clock. There is no reason to dribble the air out of the ball and wait for the seconds of the shot clock to tick off. Some attempts at running a primary play wouldn’t kill them. Worst case, the original set doesn’t work and they run the Randle isolation at the end of the shot clock.

The frustration doesn’t end there. Because, as I mentioned previously, most of the Knicks’ action starts with Burks as the initiator. But, why? Barrett has emerged as the Knicks’ best player over the past month. Burks is a better spot-up shooter. If you’re determined to run a simple action, why not run it through your two best players? Why not let your 21-year-old, the man you want to make the face of your franchise, gain opportunities and comfort in the game’s most important moments? 

Unfortunately, we’ll never know. And as the Knicks watched another close game slip away, it became abundantly clear that, unless things change quickly, this season will be remembered far more for what we don’t know than what we do.