We’re going to get a sense, in a road trip that begins now with the Lakers and Clippers in Los Angeles, if the Knicks are finally something other than this, at last: Second-Round Knicks. And that’s if they can get past the Pistons if they have to play the young and talented and athletic Pistons in the first round.
The schedule gets hard now before it gets easy again, the easy part being when these Knicks have so often been at their best this season: Lakers and Clippers, then at Sacramento and at Portland before they finish the trip against Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler and them in San Francisco, perhaps with Karl-Anthony Towns back in the gym.
It all starts with the Lakers, who have become a rocket to the moon with Luka Doncic now teamed with LeBron, and with the Lakers not only second-best in the Western Conference but looking as formidable and dangerous as the Thunder or the Cavs or the Celtics. The Lakers have already beaten the Knicks at the Garden without Luka. It would be something very cool if the Knicks could get them back on Thursday night; would finally be a statement game against one of the best teams in the league, which the Lakers once again are, and which the Warriors once again are, and what these Knicks still only aspire to be.
Again and again: This is not to diminish the entertainment the Knicks have provided us to here, the talent that is clearly in the room, as disconnected as that talent sometimes seems to be. They still play hard, and we just saw how hard they played against the Grizzlies and the Heat on the road, two games they easily could have lost and did not in the end. But right now, this point of the season, twenty games left, raise a hand if you honestly believe they are something more than the Second-Round Knicks.
It is why this next handful of games, even on the road, would be an excellent time for them to show up in a way they haven’t against the Thunder this season, against the Cavs, against the defending champ Celtics. Did they have Towns the other night against the Warriors? They sure did not. Was this a home game that was right there for them for most of the night? It was, and as much as Warriors coach Steve Kerr admitted that the sides weren’t quite even because of Towns’ absence, and also speculate on this night how the Knicks might start to look with Towns in the lineup along with Mitchell Robinson.
“[The Knicks with Towns] is different,” Kerr said afterward. “And then you have to account for Mitchell Robinson being back, too, and see how many minutes he plays. We haven’t seen him in a couple years. He’s a game-changer for them with being a lob threat, shot-blocker.”
That is all more than fair, the way it is just as fair to say that this next stretch of games won’t be a complete reckoning as to where the Knicks are at the head of the stretch, not until Towns is back on the floor, and Robinson starts to get his legs back underneath him. But they still need to show up in Los Angeles. They can’t get rolled by LeBron and Luka on Thursday night. If LeBron could beat the Knicks at the Garden before Luka showed up, the Knicks can give the Lakers a game or even win the game without Towns in the lineup. The Lakers were down two starters on Tuesday night against a Pelicans team that had been playing well and against Zion Williamson (37 points) having himself a big Hollywood night, and still won going away.
You know Jalen Brunson is always going to show up. You know Josh Hart is always going to show up and do all of his glue-guy things. But Mikal Bridges, who played like a star before he got to the Knicks has been wildly inconsistent, at both ends of the court. OG Anunoby, who’s definitely being paid like a star, scored 29 points against the Warriors, but sometimes seemed to be giving up more than that at the other end of the court, especially when Steph and the Warriors were taking control of the game and the night in the second half.
This is supposed to be the year when the Knicks are no longer stuck in the middle. There is still plenty of time for them to show up and show everybody that they have enough game to finally make it back to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in a quarter-century. But for now, there are six teams in their own elite division in the NBA, if you’re still including Nikola Jokic, which I am:
Thunder.
Cavs.
Celtics.
Lakers.
Warriors.
Nuggets.
The only teams in there with better records than the Knicks at this point are the Thunder, Cavs and Celtics. That is what you see in the standings. This would be a perfect time for them to make you see the same thing on the court, starting with this game against the Lakers; to not see the disconnect you sometimes see with them on the court, and not just at the defensive end.
They are still a great show, these Knicks, they are. They have one of the biggest sports stars in town in Brunson. The story of this season isn’t nearly over for them, and all of the games they’ve won, no matter how soft the schedule has been at time, haven’t won themselves.
There is still plenty of time for them, before we do arrive at the first round of the playoffs, for them to show us and show everybody — and show themselves most of all — that they are more than the Second-Round Knicks. Plenty of time, and about time.