Knicks drop 9th in row with Emmanuel at PG
Emmanuel Mudiay was bullish about his second opportunity in New York, about his chance to prove that the label of ‘draft bust’ did not apply.
But over a month later, the resurrection has felt more like digging a deeper ditch.
Mudiay was handed the starting pointguard position under a mandate from the front office, and has now quarterbacked nine straight defeats – including Thursday’s 118-110 home collapse to the Sixers – solidifying the Knicks’ (24-45) position in the septic tank.
Most of Mudiay’s game has been disappointing: his defense, his shooting, his decisions, his turnovers.
On Thursday, he started hot with 10 points in the first quarter but managed just two for the remainder – and was on the floor when the Knicks were outscored, 20-6, in the final 5 1/2 minutes. His drive with 2:20 remaining became the pivotal moment as Mudiay was blocked by Embiid, leading to a fastbreak on the other end and a Sixers’ 3-pointer to take a four-point advantage.
During Mudiay’s 330 total minutes with the Knicks, they’ve been outscored by an astounding 141 points. And for the first time Thursday, Jeff Hornacek singled him out for not taking a charge against Joel Embiid in the fourth quarter.
“We just want to see these guys’ competitiveness late in games,” the coach said. “There was an opportunity to take a charge – a game-winning play – and we didn’t do it.”
Mudiay indicated that Embiid’s immense size (7-feet, 250 pounds) was a deterrent to taking a charge.
“(Hornacek’s) upset about it, but I can’t go back in time,” the 22-year-old said. “That’s a big guy. So stepping in front of that. …yeah.
“But you know what, he said it could’ve been a winning play and I agree with him. It could’ve been a winning play. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking charge.”
Otherwise, Hornacek has preached patience for Mudiay. It’s the mantra from the Knicks as everybody wants to de-emphasize the results of another lottery-bound season.
“He’s still young,” said Hornacek, whose team lost for the 18th time in their last 19 games. “We have to see how he plays and how he reads things. Everybody wants new chances when they go to a new team but we kind of threw him out there. The biggest thing he has to work on is how to be a point guard.”
Mudiay was racking up DNPs with the Nuggets when the Knicks acquired him for Doug McDermott and a second-round draft pick. He was the seventh overall pick in 2015 but after two seasons of losing the Nuggets went with a different point guard – and, perhaps not coincidentally, started winning.
The Knicks, who are in the “talent acquisition phase,” as GM Scott Perry labeled it, took their chance on Mudiay and quickly pushed Jarrett Jack out of the lineup to accommodate. Mudiay also got the start over Frank Ntilikina, who was moved to the offguard position coming off the bench and totaled just 13 scoreless minutes Thursday.
The results have not been pretty. Entering Thursday, Mudiay was averaging 10.3 points, 4.8 assists and 2.3 turnovers while shooting just 37 percent (21 percent from beyond the arc). The Knicks owned the worst defensive rating in the NBA (by far) since acquiring Mudiay, while the Nuggets had the best offensive rating in the league since that deal.
The Knicks’ free fall is not all on Mudiay and the biggest factor remains Kristaps Porzingis’ ACL injury. But the move from Denver hasn’t worked out the way he hoped.
“I’ve never lost this many games in a row,” he said. “It’s definitely frustrating and I’m not happy about it because I know I’m not a loser, I know the people in here are not losers, it’s just we have to figure out a way.”