The Knicks fell in a big hole to start the game in Portland, and it looked like blowout city early on. Despite Immanuel Quickley’s best efforts to lead a comeback, New York fell to a shorthanded Portland Trail Blazers team on Sunday night, 116-113.

After improving to .500 through their first 16 games, the New York Knicks are slowly being brought back down to earth on their west coast road trip. The latest humble pie comes courtesy of Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers, who outlasted them on Sunday night, 116-113.

Prior to this matchup, the Knicks dropped their Friday night game against the Sacramento Kings in an absolutely sluggish and blundering fashion. But given that it was on the second night of a back-to-back, fans were optimistic that New York could turn things around on Sunday.

Lillard, the Trail Blazers’ All-Star point guard, quickly (no pun intended) put those hopes to bed, by way of a small explosion in the first quarter that saw him finish with 15 points. You can credit his outburst to “good defensive player” and starting point guard Elfrid Payton. 

Trailing 37 to 24, the Knicks never quite found the footing they needed to make a push against Portland. As far as bright moments in the first quarter, there were few for New York. 

But after a rough shooting night against the Kings, veteran wing Alec Burks rebounded well and was knocking down his first few 3-point attempts early on. He would go on to finish the game with 18 points and three steals on 5-8 shooting from behind the arc.

The second quarter of this one came and went with next to no excitement for the Knicks. Immanuel Quickley had some nice moments as the team’s de facto point guard early on. 

Anfernee Simons, the west coast’s version of former Knicks great Allonzo Trier, made some problems for New York in the second quarter, as he closed out the first half with 13 points. His contributions, along with Lillard’s 18 points, gave the Blazers a 20-point lead at the break. 

If nothing else, we did get to see Quickley share the floor with some of the starters, primarily Julius Randle, for a decent stretch. As New York continues to invest in the rookie guard, watch for his time on the floor next to the team’s best players to increase game by game. 

The Knicks came out of halftime with only room to improve, but didn’t show a desire to, as the third quarter waned on. Randle started hitting some shots for New York, but Lillard and Portland wing Gary Trent Jr. made sure to keep them at an arm's length by way of a 3-point barrage. 

Portland’s star point guard made it all the way to 25 points on 8-8 shooting from the field before finally missing a shot about halfway through the third quarter. Without his two co-stars CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic, Lillard reminded the Knicks what he’s capable of as an individual, and quite arguably a top-10 player in the NBA.

Things only remained interesting for Tom Thibodeau and company because Burks came up big for the team once again and continued to knock down shots from behind the arc. 

It wasn’t enough to close the gap on Portland’s lead, but the Knicks did end the third quarter down just 12 points to their Western Conference opponent. What happened next is why fans should be less upset with this loss than the nature of the outcome may dictate. 

Quickley exploded for 21 points in the fourth quarter, setting a new career-high of 31 points and keeping New York in the game until the final buzzer sounded. He did it by basically scoring in every way imaginable — threes, layups, floaters, drawing fouls, you name it. He went toe-to-toe with Damian Lillard and almost pulled off a huge comeback.

The Kentucky product finished Sunday night as the first rookie in New York Knicks history to tally 31 points off of the bench while also knocking down five shots from 3-point territory. In the end, thanks to a slight nudge from the referees, it wasn’t enough to get the win. Portland was able to hold off Quickley and the Knicks’ efforts and close the game out 116-113.

Notes

• I’m not sure how the Knicks’ front office can watch games like this one and not make the phone call to Thibodeau and demand a lineup change. Elfrid Payton is continuing to fall short of the head coach’s expectations and Immanuel Quickley, for the entire year thus far, has only exceeded them. Something to monitor.

• New York was without Reggie Bullock on Sunday, and it’s possible he lost his job as the starting shooting guard in his absence. Alec Burks’ 18-point performance and continual 3-point accuracy may be the first domino that falls in any starting lineup change.

• Despite being available, Frank Ntilikina didn’t see any run against the Trail Blazers. Considering Lillard was at one point torching the Knicks to whatever temperature is beyond well done, it’s telling that Thibodeau didn’t bring the French guard in to try and cool off the All-Star guard. As he noted before the game, this is likely more indicative of Ntilikina’s current conditioning, or lack thereof.

• Speaking of plus-defensive contributors, it was a relatively quiet night for big man Mitchell Robinson, who played just 26 of 48 possible minutes. He tallied eight points and nine rebounds on Sunday, and was unable to feast on his matchup with Enes Kanter. Nerlens Noel’s minutes were all but unbearable, which begs the ultimate question: when is enough, enough? When is it time to officially #FreeTaj?

• Even with Burks’ and Quickley’s contributions, the Knicks continue to fall short from 3-point land. After going just 5-22 from deep in their loss to the Kings, every player aside from the two hot hands went a combined 2-13 from deep — that’s 15%. Something’s got to give.

All in all, at the end of the day, this one had too much Payton and not enough Quickley. The two guards split the 48-minute rotation at point guard 50-50, but the rookie’s takeover in the fourth quarter left something to be desired in regards to what could have been a New York Knicks win. 

There’s one game left on this west coast road trip, so one more opportunity for the kids to surprise us. New York will take on the red-hot Utah Jazz on Tuesday night, as they hope to wrap up this four-game series with an even two wins and two losses. They’ll have their hands full no doubt, but with a largely healthy roster, don’t count out these Knicks just yet, as they showed in this game.