Tanks a lot! Knicks win against Piston but lose Ping-Pong balls
Even when the Knicks win, it feels like a loss.
With a 109-95 victory over the Pistons Monday night at the Garden, the Knicks (2846) moved out of three-way tie with the Magic and 76ers for the fourth-worst record in the NBA. That means fewer Ping-Pong balls in this spring’s lottery and a worse chance at a better draft pick.
Orlando suffered its 47th defeat of the season Monday at Toronto. Philadelphia, which finished the weekend with the same record as the Knicks, had Monday off.
“Players don’t want to lose. Coaches don’t want to lose,” Jeff Hornacek said after the game. “So we’re going to go out there and play.”
During the Knicks’ recent West Coast trip, Carmelo Anthony said Hornacek was planning on limiting veteran players’ minutes. But the Knicks coach didn’t do that Monday night.
Anthony — who sat out back-to-back games on Thursday and Saturday because of knee soreness — scored 21 points in 35 minutes. Derrick Rose paced the Knicks with 27 points in 32 minutes. And Kristaps Porzingis added 25 points in 37 minutes.
Anthony called Monday night’s contest a “must-win” for “the morale of the team.”
“We don’t want to end the season on a really horrible note and take that into the summer,” Hornacek said.
With Monday’s victory, the Knicks avoided being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs for at least another two nights.
When asked about the fans who wants the Knicks to tank, Anthony quipped, “They can come play.”
“It’s hard to come into a game saying we’re going to try to lose,” Anthony said. “I don’t know how you do that. I honestly don’t.”
TRI THIS — SOME DEFENSE
The focus on the wishy-washy triangle has detracted from the Knicks’ greatest encumbrance this season: the awful defense.
Heading into Monday’s game against the Pistons, they ranked 26th in the league in defensive efficiency, an embarrassing position that can be best described as a group effort.
There were three obvious problems, all addressed Monday by Jeff Hornacek with an eye toward correcting them next season. First of all, the Knicks don’t have many good individual defenders. Secondly, they switched up their defensive game plan under assistant Kurt Rambis and never established consistency. Thirdly, a lot of the players didn’t try hard on that end.
“Defensively, we’ve got a lot of work,” Hornacek said.
Hornacek said the same thing about the confusion on offense — specifically that he made a mistake deviating from the triangle. But there is no question the Knicks have talented offensive players. Maybe too many who didn’t play defense.
Derrick Rose had the 10th-worst defensive rating in the NBA before Monday at 114.9. Courtney Lee and Carmelo Anthony were also in the bottom-35.
— Stefan Bondy