ORLANDO, Fla. — The Knicks didn’t necessarily need the reminder of just how fragile a good thing can be in the NBA, and they certainly didn’t want this firsthand account of just how brittle the delicate tapestry of a season is. But that’s what they’ve gotten. That’s what they take into the All-Star break.
That, and a four-game losing streak after the Magic smeared them, 118-100, Wednesday night. The Knicks actually played inspired ball for the game’s first 13 minutes, led by 12 points, allowed the Knicks fans scattered throughout the Kia Center a few spasms of hope. But the Magic had a full boat and the Knicks were trying to bluff them with a pair of deuces.
Doesn’t work in the NBA.
And now the Knicks won’t work for eight solid days, and since it’s not just the team limping into the break but about two-thirds of the players themselves, that was the biggest positive to be gleaned from a tough two-game swing through Texas and Florida.
“It’s a great opportunity to take a break and recharge,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said.
It’s almost surreal to recall how it’s gotten to this. Just nine days ago the Knicks moved a season-high 15 games over .500, hammering the Grizzlies 123-113 and extending a scalding-hot stretch of 15 wins in 18 games. Two days later, they completed a deal to add Alec Burks and Bojan Bogdanovic. They’d passed the 76ers, caught the Bucks, were a few percentage points behind the Cavs for No. 2 in the East.
Now, a week later, they’re just hoping to find an open service station with the gas light blinking. Donte DiVincenzo and Bogdanovic joined the swollen pile of inactives, and the Knicks had only nine healthy bodies, including two G-League call-ups.
(Thibs didn’t ask your humble one-legged columnist if he could give him 10 solid minutes Wednesday night if the 10-day contract paperwork could get faxed to the Kia Center in time. But he sure seemed on the verge of it. Relative to his roster, your humble one-legged columnist was in reasonably good health.)
The good news: all six of the boldfaced names missing Wednesday night will be expected back in the days and weeks after the NBA All-Star Game, and Jalen Brunson (ankle) and Josh Hart (knee) will also be able to tend to lingering aches and pains. And the Knicks will still be fourth in the East when play resumes.
The bad: while you would hope that they’ll be able to pick up where they left off, both collectively and individually … well, there’s no guarantee of that. And there’s no guarantee something else isn’t lurking between here and the start of the playoffs. That’s the trick in the NBA, after all. Nobody wants to say it out loud, but everyone knows. And the Knicks are now only three loss-column games clear of the play-in tournament.
Hell, all the Knicks need to do to see how tenuously tied together good fortune in pro basketball really is look across town at the Nets. Former NBA journeyman Justin Jackson was on the “Run Your Race” podcast Tuesday. He was a member of the 2021 Bucks, who squared up with the Nets in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“If James Harden and Kyrie Irving don’t get hurt, they low-key sweep us,” Jackson told co-host AJ Richardson. “It was so bad I had my car shipped back home when I got home from Brooklyn [after the first two games] because I wanted my car there when I flew back after these next two games.
“It was that bad,” Jackson added. “There was nothing we could do. And then injuries happen, period. James got hurt the first game and they still beat us by 40 in the second game, that’s what’s crazy about it.
“Then we go to [Milwaukee] and it looked like they were still in charge of the series. Then Ky rolled his ankle it’s like we actually might have a chance now … so you can say woulda, coulda, shoulda but if that team was healthy they were winning the whole thing, I don’t care what anybody says.”
Then Jackson offered a money-shot quote that ought to send chills up the backs of the Knicks, the 76ers and every other team for which this currently applies — and for teams presently rolling, like the Celtics, whose June expectations could also easily go sideways if someone’s knee or ankle bends a way it’s not supposed to.
“Sports happen,” he said. “Injuries happen.”
As Brad Hamilton told Spicoli and his crew in “Fast Times”: “Learn it. Know it. Live it.”
