With 20 games left, depleted squad in standings dogfight
NEW YORK — Twenty. That’s how many regular-season games the Knicks have left.
It’s the number of opportunities a depleted New York roster will get to retain its playoff standing.
The free-fall is in full effect at Madison Square Garden, where a Knicks team without its entire starting frontcourt has lost nine of its last 12 games — including Tuesday’s
16-point loss to the No. 10 Atlanta Hawks in a matchup both Jalen Brunson (bruised knee) and Trae Young (hand surgery) missed due to injury.
Without Brunson — who luckily evaded a serious injury and is working to return to play soon — a Knicks team already short Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder), OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) couldn’t expose a porous Atlanta Hawks defense.
It was one of the Knicks’ ugliest losses of the season.
Such is the status quo — ugly — at The Garden of Dreams, where a roster stretched thin is beginning to reach its limits.
And while it’s unfair to cast higher expectations onto a team missing such core players, the Knicks — shorthanded or not — still need every win they can get, with Tuesday’s inexplicable loss to Atlanta a costly blunder in the standings.
The Orlando Magic, who own the season series against the Knicks, 3-0, leapfrogged New York as the new fourth seed in the East on Tuesday.
The Knicks have fallen to fifth and are only a half-game ahead of the No. 6 Miami Heat.
No. 7 Philadelphia and No. 8 Indiana are within striking distance, too, and 76ers MVP Joel Embiid is expected to return from a meniscus injury soon.
Only 1.5 games separate No. 4
Orlando from No. 8 Indiana, which means the fifth-place Knicks are closertofallingtoeighthineastthan they are to climbing to the No. 3 seed.
Make no mistake: The No. 3 seed is in play the second Randle, Anunoby and Brunson suit up in the starting lineup once again — and bonus points if Robinson is able to return as a dominant force in the paint this season.
A mostly healthy Knicks team won 13 games in the 16 immediately following the Anunoby trade.