Warriors 110, Knicks 99: "Props to Josh for playing 47 minutes"

The New York Knicks (35-25) will tell you they played basketball on Thursday but we for one know they couldn’t buy a bucket. Perhaps that’s because their opponents, the suddenly scorching-hot Golden State Warriors, had already acquired them all by the time the hosts arrived at Madison Square Garden.

Steph Curry (31 points) led the Dubs to another win, their eighth in the last 10 games, by beating the hapless and injury-ravaged Knickerbockers 110-99 at MSG in the 60th game of the regular season for the New Yorkers.

Golden State lost no time and dealt with Tom Thibodeau’s squad quickly and swiftly perhaps knowing they had to take a plane destination north of the border to face the Raptors on the second game of a back-to-back on Friday, March 1.

That’s probably why they rampaged to a 14-0 start while the Knicks spent nearly half a quarter missing shots until they connected with 6:34 left in the first period courtesy of a Donte DiVincenzo two-point layup. No need to get overly excited, mind you, as the score would soon move to 20-5 with New York not having any clue of what was hitting it.

Thursday marked the second game in a row in which the Knicks failed to hit the 100-point plateau. It was also the fourth consecutive game in which New York allowed 110+ points to an opponent.

“Probably the defense struggling is a combination [of things]. Obviously, it’s [OG going out], but also coinciding with that is Isaiah [Hartenstein] going out,” Thibodeau said before the game in a very ominous press conference. “So some of our rim protection is gone. But we still have to find a way to get it done. Other guys, get in there and get it done.”

They surely did not get it done yesterday on that end of the floor, and making things even worse is the fact that the offense collapsed entirely for the majority of the game in Thursday’s wire-to-wire defeat to the 31-27 Dubs, 10th-best team out West.

It is virtually impossible for the Knicks to fall out of the playoff picture entirely with only 22 games left to play (Brooklyn is in 11th place, three games behind Atlanta, making it a 15.5-game distance from New York) but it’s also impossible not to think about a future in which New York falls into the seventh or eighth seed and is forced to play one or two do-or-die play-in games to punch their ticket to the postseason.

The Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers have two things in common when it comes to Eastern Conference teams sitting in a top-five seed: they have put together a losing record in February (4-8 each) and they are missing at least one key player each (Julius Randle and OG Anunoby in the case of New York, Joel Embiid for Philly).

All other Top-10 seeds in the East have finished February with winning or .500 records (Chicago, 5-5), which doesn’t bode well for a Knicks squad that is still waiting for the returns of their main contributors and starters to a lineup that is currently held by duck-tape at best.

Cue Josh Hart and his 47 minutes of play on Thursday. Kudos to the man for putting up numbers and finishing with 14 points, 18 boards, seven dimes, and two steals—the effort was commendable even though his arms fell off his torso and saw him shoot 4-of-17 from the floor.

Jalen Brunson led the Knicks with 27 points and thank God he “only” played 37 minutes. Donte DiVincenzo logged 36 rounds of the clock himself but stopped his scoring at a low 16, the most among New Yorkers not named Jalen.

Newcomer Alec Burks was limited to 11 minutes off the pine (“I probably should have played him more minutes tonight,” Thibs acknowledged after the game) and fellow former Piston Bojan Bogdanovic got 18 minutes of run. They combined for nine points and shot 2-of-13 with Bogey missing all seven shots he attempted, including four triples.

Jericho Sims and Deuce McBride carried the bench playing 22 minutes each and putting up a combined 24-7-4-3 line. That was basically New York’s bench yesterday, as the contributions of BB+AB were slim to transparent.

Not only that but starting center Isaiah Hartenstein was limited (once more) to 20 minutes of play (reasonable with the game basically out of reach for the full 48 minutes, mind you) and revealed after the affair that he has made a rushed return from his Achilles injury to try and help the team, although that’s perhaps not the best thing looking forward.

“I probably could’ve sat out a couple more weeks,” Hartenstein said. “But to me, I think we found a perfect medium where we’re ramping it up at a good time. Just want to be here for the team.”

Again, hats off to him for trying to do everything to add one or two wins to the team and save the Knicks from falling into the play-in. But looking at the bigger picture from the broader angle, these dudes should be hella cautious because the situation is already precarious and every and any more problem/injury that pops up could be truly disastrous.

Alas, here we are. The Knicks have many home games ahead of them following Sunday’s on-the-road matchup at Cleveland. Don’t get that wrong, however, as the competition won’t get any softer nor the matchups easier.

I guess we can at least say the nightmarish February is over. And as always, Go Knickerbockers!