Thunder 126, Knicks 101: Last night the Knicks did not declare themselves contenders
That was . . . . . . something
In Marvel’s 1991 Infinity Gauntlet series, the one later adapted in the MCU, dozens of superheroes join forces to attack Thanos, who wants to kill half the universe (for a verrrry different reason than in the films). After killing them all, Thanos is hit by a second, exponentially more powerful group: a collection of cosmic beings, including a planet eater, a sentient planet, the living embodiments of love, hate, the universe, and more, a conflict of such immense combined power there was fear the fight itself would destroy the cosmos. The issue was titled “Conflagration on the far side of the galaxy.”
Spoiler: there was no conflagration. Thanos was even more inevitable then than in Endgame. Last night Madison Square Garden was hyped to host a conflagration between the New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder, two of the league’s top-five teams. For the second time in a week, the eyes of the basketball world were on New York’s korma-rich offense and née Seattle’s defense, a unit stricter than a cult leader. For the second time in a week, the Knicks had the chance to do something they haven’t in 12 years and win a heavyweight bout. So what happened?
Depends.
The glass half-empty
The Knicks lost 126-101. By halftime they were down 27; OKC’s owners could have decided to move back to the Pacific Northwest, loaded the players and coaches into moving vans, driven halfway there, been visited by three ghosts in their dreams, changed their mind and driven all the way back to MSG and the Knicks still would’ve lost. The Thunder looked disturbingly comfortable with this match-up from the jump.
Oklahoma City is to Masai Ujiri what Mozart was to Salieri: the former a shining, unreachable expression of the latter’s dream. Everyone on that team is apparently at least 6-foot-6, with Ntilikina-ish wingspan and a feral defensive approach. Their m.o. is to turn teams over as much as possible; Mike Breen mentioned the Thunder produce seven more turnovers a game than they commit, a level of disparity that echoes our late-state capitalist hellscape. And yet the Knicks finished with only 10 turnovers, far fewer than the Thunder’s 15. That’s good, yes?
Of course not! This is the glass half-empty section, remember? Your average loser teams might just cough the ball up a billion times en route to being blown out, but the Knicks didn’t bleed out so much as suffocate. Jalen Brunson is a dream to watch with the ball in his hands, but OKC more than anyone else sometimes has him looking like he’s in a nightmare – a long-limbed, physical nightmare. Brunson has to work harder than usual just to get shots off against them, and even when he does it’s almost never clean. Lots of teams throw size at Brunson. Lots of teams aren’t the Thunder.
Their defense also puts Karl-Anthony Towns in a predicament not many teams can. Whenever Chet Holmgren returns to action the Thunder will have a two-big combo of two-way skill, between him and Isaiah Hartenstein, who was greeting his former Knick friends and coaches after the final buzzer as MSG decided to cut to a sponsored Shai Gilgeous-Alexander highlight. Jesus fucking Christ.
Anyway, where was I? Yes, the bigs. A fully-operational Thunder have the size to match up against most anybody, but in their two games against the Knicks we’ve seen they have other tools for tackling someone like Towns (there’s almost no one like Towns). They didn’t check him with iHart, opting instead for defenders giving up both height and heft. And what does basketball 101 teach us? If you’re bigger and stronger, back ‘em down. And Towns has.
And that’s just what the Thunder want: in 72 minutes over the two games this season, KAT took a grand total of two 3-pointers. The man who’s fourth in the Association in accuracy, who’s pronounced himself the greatest shooting 7-footer ever and doesn’t hear laughter when he does, took one more three in two games against the Thunder as Tyler Kolek did last night in two minutes.
Perhaps Brunson and Towns would have had a little more airspace if Mikal Bridges hadn’t shot like Ronnie Brewer (0-for-9, making him 4-for-27 his past two games) and OG Anunoby had any juice from deep (he missed all five of his threes). Maybe some makes might have brought some life to a Knick defense that surrendered 70 points by the half. Maybe the Knicks thought Isaiah Joe was a hallucination, and now that they know he’s very real they won’t leave him wiiiiiide-open on a night he ends up drilling eight threes. Maybe somewhere out there, there’s someone who can somewhat stifle SGA; if not, we could be looking at another decade of the 39-on-15-of-21-shooting nights he’s forever putting up.
The Knicks spent the past year and just about all of their trade assets to build a title-worthy starting lineup. They have. But Canyon of Heroes parades aren’t built in a day; the chemistry and depth they have to build to top a team like these Thunder takes time. The good news? They probably won’t have to face them again until next season – when there’s hopefully better chemistry and depth.
The glass half-full
The Thunder won their two games against the Knicks by an average of 17.5 points, a margin suggesting a mismatch. But break the numbers down a bit and a more nuanced picture emerges.
The Knicks and Thunder have played eight quarters against each other. Subtracting last night’s fourth, when half the two teams’ starters sat, here’s the scoring breakdown the first seven:
Q 1-3 = 88-80 NYK
Q 4-6 = 107-62 OKC
Q 7 = 32-31 OKC
The Knicks played possibly their best and worst quarters of the season last week at Oklahoma City. They nearly won that game. They never nearly won last night, but there’s a reason they heard boos for the first time this season going into halftime. These weren’t your old-school “Fire [fill in the blank]!” or “Sell the team!” kinda boos. It was pure, unadulterated competitive disappointment. We were promised Ali/Frazier. We got Tyson/McNeely.
(If you’re unfamiliar, just know McNeely – an absolute tomato can of a joke of a fighter for someone like Tyson – began a press conference telling the assembled, skeptical media they all had “a dump in their pants,” and that that was far more impressive than anything he did in the ring against Iron Mike)
Not all boos are created equal. The Knicks aren’t broken! Just beaten. And to be fair, the Thunder shot 60% from the field and 67% from deep in the first half versus the Knicks’ 32% and 13%, (dis)respectively. If you’re not booing that, you’re probably Eric Adams: too dumb, corrupt or both to know or care what’s going on.
Regular-season games offer some insight into specific match-ups, but they’re not a tell-all. You go on a few dates with someone, that doesn’t mean you know what it’ll be like to get into a relationship with them. If the Knicks did get past the Celtics and Cavaliers – two teams without the stifling backcourt size of the Thunder – and found themselves in Oklahoma for Game 1 of the NBA Finals, maybe they figure out something they didn’t have time for in the hustle-and-bustle of the regular season. If not, no worries. “Inevitable” doesn’t always mean “always.”
