This Process is brutal
An open letter to KP on a night Knicks really miss him
PHILADELPHIA – Dear Kristaps Porzingis, We miss you. Sometimes the Knicks, sans you, can be entertaining and competitive. Tim Hardaway Jr. can get hot. Emmanuel Mudiay can throw down a spectacular dunk. Enes Kanter can energize in the paint. But then there are reminder nights like Wednesday’s 117-91 embarrassing defeat to the Sixers, when your team is a lost cause, when it’s overmatched, bludgeoned, and everybody can see why the record is 7-16.
Wednesday night brought ready-made excuses. The Knicks were playing in the second game of a back-to-back, while the Sixers, a better team regardless of the previous night’s workload, were operating on two day’s rest.
But the product was inexcusable.
The Knicks, losers of two straight, were down by 14 after the first quarter, then 20 at the half, then 25 after the third, then 26 at the final whistle. A steady blowout. No lapses.
David Fizdale’s team shot just 34.8%, as Hardaway missed 10 of his 11 attempts. Without you, Hardaway is dominating the ball and has the green light to fire – or misfire – to his heart’s content. He’s shooting about 40% for the season, and defenses, like the Sixers’ on Wednesday, are starting to concentrate on stopping him because the Knicks are devoid of other perimeter options. Hardaway misses you, too.
“I’ve never been in a situation like this before,” he said.
The Knicks’ defense allowed one of your rivals, Philly’s Joel Embiid, to dominate to the tune of 26 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists.
Jimmy Butler, a free agent after this season, was a nonfactor offensively but he didn’t need to produce in a game his team never trailed.
“We didn’t have an answer for any of them,” Fizdale said. “That was a focused team, they came out with really good focus. When you get a veteran team that’s hitting that point where they’re all starting to figure it out, we just got blitzed and we really didn’t have an answer for anything they did.”
The Sixers (15-8), as you know, went through their own growing pains and rebuild to reach this point, tanking at a rate so strong the NBA had to step in and replace the GM.
The Knicks, sans you, are in a similar position to those woeful Sixers, rolling with the youngest roster in the NBA. Not one active player Wednesday was older than 26.
But Fizdale believes the Knicks don’t have to settle for the same lengthy journey of losing. Why?
“We have Kristaps waiting in the wings,” he said. “That’s the one thing that’s a little different than what (Sixers coach Brett Brown) went through. They were trying to figure out all these different young guys. And you know, at some point they finally settled in on who those guys were gonna be. But I just feel like with Kristaps sitting in the wings hopefully that can fast track us a little bit more.” S ee, we all miss you. Not to count the days but it’s almost 10 months after your ACL surgery. Fizdale still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on when you’ll return. “We know at some point he’s gonna come back to our team,” he said. The sooner the better. Get well soon.