Ailing Smith to sit out fifth straight game

The Knicks had hopes to have J.R. Smith ready for their trip to Chicago for Thursday’s game with the Bulls.

Yeah, well, they also had hoped to have a wonlost record north of .500 for that game, too. They’ll have neither. Smith will miss his fifth straight game with a small partial tear of his left plantar fascia. The Knicks are on a daily waitandsee mode, but the shooting guard did not travel with the team to Chicago.

“Just trying to get some treatment, we’ll see if we can accelerate the healing process as much as we can,” coach Derek Fisher said. “Games Saturday and Sunday coming up, so hopefully we can get some accelerated healing over the next few days. Maybe have him back with us.”

The Bulls’ medical issues: center Joakim Noah (right ankle) is questionable, forward Taj Gibson (right ankle) is questionable and forward Doug McDermott (right knee) is out.

Before the game Tuesday, Fisher said he was frustrated “for”

free his players, not “at” his players because of the close losses that piled up despite effort. After the 10787 loss to Dallas, Fisher was peeved with his starters for a lack of effort, cohesion and everything else.

“That was a disappointment to their teammates more than anything,” said Fisher, who subbed his starters as a unit.

“We talked about it some [on Tuesday] and we talked about it some this morning,” Fisher said after practice Wednesday in Tarrytown. “We’re just continuing to break down this mindset of what we can’t do and continue to remind these guys we’re repeatedly in the same situations and if we can just change the way we’re viewing it, we can get better results.

“But that’s tough to ask guys to do when they feel the outcome is going to be the same.” Namely, a loss. “You can’t get into that type of mindset during the season at any point,” Fisher said. “Each game is its own game and you have to give yourself a chance to win that game that you’re playing that night and last night we didn’t do that right from the start.”

And if only all those close defeats hadn’t stacked up like cordwood, maybe Tuesday could have been viewed as “one of those games.” But a team, so desperate for a win, cannot be excused for such shoddy effort.

“We’re working to get to that point where we can play great against great teams,” Fisher said.