Knicks will have two chances in three days to show they can beat the NBA's best
Mikal Bridges of the Knicks puts up a shot in the first half against Ayo Dosunmu of the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Sooner or later, it has to happen.
Sooner or later, the Knicks are going to have to beat a really good team. Sooner or later, they are going to have to show they can play with the best, show that they can face a team with a record better than theirs and come out with a W.
The Knicks (37-18) have two chances in the next three days to change this as they play the only teams in the Eastern Conference with better records than theirs.
After their 113-111 overtime win over Chicago on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks boarded a plane for Cleveland for Friday night’s game against the Cavaliers (45-10), who have had the best record in the Eastern Conference all season. Two days later, they will play a Sunday matinee game against the Celtics (40-16) in Boston.
The Knicks head into Friday’s game 0-5 against teams that have a better record than they do. They are 0-2 against Oklahoma City, 0-2 against Boston and 0-1 against Cleveland, whom they will play three more times this season.
The Knicks moved into third place in the conference on Dec. 15 and have been a fixture there for 24 games. Although they really haven’t been threatened by anyone behind them — fourth-place Indiana is 5½ games behind — they haven’t done much to threaten the teams above them.
Whether they can send a message in the next few days may have a lot to do with their injury situation, which remains murky at best.
The Knicks were down two starters Thursday as Josh Hart sat out with a recurring sore knee and OG Anunoby missed his sixth straight game with a foot injury. Anunoby had been listed as questionable for Thursday’s game but was ruled out 30 minutes before tipoff. He is traveling with the team to Cleveland.
Hart, one of the team’s ironmen, had missed only one previous game this season, and that was for personal reasons. He was a surprise addition to the Knicks’ injury report on Wednesday after not practicing with the team.
Both players are listed as day-to-day, and it’s highly possible that the Knicks decided to rest them for the Chicago game so they could play the second game of the back-to-back in Cleveland.
The Cavaliers and Knicks haven’t played since the third game of the season, when both teams were still figuring out who they are. The Knicks lost that game, 110-104, after being outscored by 10 points in the fourth quarter.
The Cavaliers have since added De’Andre Hunter and are 3-0 with him in the lineup. Still, the Knicks match up much better with the Cavaliers than they do with Oklahoma City and the Celtics, and Friday’s game could be an interesting playoff preview.
“Obviously, their record tells you how good they are,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said of the Cavaliers. “They’ve had a good season. We’re going to have to go in and play 48 minutes of great basketball. We understand what we’re going to have to do to go in there. They’re a terrific team.”
Boston is a much harder out, and the Knicks’ goal here has to be avoiding a third straight embarrassment. They lost their season opener to the defending champs, 132-109, in Boston and were defeated, 131-104, on Feb. 8 at Madison Square Garden.
In both games, they have had absolutely no answer for Jayson Tatum, who followed a 37-point game in Boston with a 40-pointer at MSG. Anunoby did not play in the second blowout. His availability could go a long way toward slowing Tatum.
It’s also possible that Mitchell Robinson will return for the Celtics game. Robinson has gone through five-on-five drills and seems just days away from rejoining his teammates for the first time since reinjuring his ankle against Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs last season.
Robinson likely will be on a minutes restriction when he returns, but fans are eager to see him on the floor for the first time with fellow big man Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Knicks, who have two new starters this season in Towns and Mikal Bridges, already have established their identity. Now they have to assert their will.
“You focus on daily improvement so you’re not changing your approach,” Thibodeau said. “ . . . It’s impossible to work on everything every day. So the idea is to be strong on both sides of the ball and to play to the best of our ability and keep improving so we’re playing our best at the end.”
Of course, winning a big game in the interim wouldn’t hurt. Sooner or later, it has to happen.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
