Heat 109, Knicks 99: “No one got hurt, so that’s a win.”

Are things starting to get a bit more worrying than they should?

The Knicks visited the Heat to play a meaningless game and lost by 10 points in Miami. That’s facts.

• New York is locked into a top-6 seed in the East pretty much no matter what.
• Miami is definitely not, and fighting to escape the Play-In portion of the standings.
• The Knicks had already won the regular-season series and thus the tie-breaker against the Heat. Tuesday’s defeat just made it 2-1 NYK.

That’s just the good part of yesterday’s affair. The one that involves drinking the Knicks-flavored Kool-Aid.

The bad part, however, is that New York looks gassed, running out of fuel, uber-dependent on Jalen Brunson’s exploits, and working under a one-man army with many players either exhausted, banged up, or simply straight out of commission.

Speaking before the game, Josh Hart told reporters “Jimmy kind of does side quests during the year until about April. Then he starts locking in.”

Are the Knicks inadvertently pulling a Reverse-Jimmy? Is New York doing too much, too soon, without regard for what’s yet to come?

Of course, something has to give. The Knicks these days are what they have, and what they have is a bunch of dudes taking over roles that they don’t have any business handling.

Mitch Rob logged 10 minutes on Tuesday after missing 50 games before returning at all from his early December injury, and after sitting the matchup against the Thunder on Sunday.

OG Anunoby’s elbow is starting to generate more buzz than it should, and not precisely for the good.

Julius Randle... well, I don’t know if I even know if I want to get there. Quoth Tom Thibodeau.

“The thing for [Randle] is that he’s got to keep working everyday until he gets to the point where he feels confident that he can take the contact that he’s accustomed to.”

“When you look at his game and the way he plays, you don’t want him to change his style of play. And I think that’s important.”

“So, keep doing what you’re doing. You have to have a belief that it will turn. Which I do. Maybe it’s tomorrow. Maybe it’s the day after. Who knows when it is? But just keep putting what you have into each day. So work out. Do your rehab. Try to strengthen your shoulder as much as you can and go from there.”

Brunson had a 20-10 dub-dub on Tuesday scoring 20 points and dishing out 10 dimes. It didn't matter. Why?

Hart scored two points in 46 minutes. He attempted three field goals, made one, no free throws.

Deuce McBride logged 45 minutes. I don’t know about it, but he might be partnering with Thibs to break some Wilt Chamberlain playing-time record here.

Alec Burks came to save the Knicks throughout the home stretch of the season. First, he was bad, then atrocious, then he got injured, and now he’s playing three minutes and grabbing a couple rebounds.

Poor Isaiah Hartenstein, who keeps dealing with a very stupid Achilles, played 18 minutes and, by extension, his production couldn’t top four points, three steals, two assists, and a single defensive board.

And obviously, if only because #HeatCulture, Terry Rozier came from the absolute dead on Tuesday to score a season-high 34 points as a member of the Heat and kill the Knicks' chances of breaking their losing skid. It is what it is.

I have written a good bunch of this thing we debuted this season called “Knicks Bulletin” for nearly the whole campaign. I know Josh Hart, I get his jokes, I know he’s never serious, etc...

Hart, however, might have not dropped a silly comment once in his lifetime when he talked to reporters in his post-game presser last Sunday.

“I’m looking at it like this is the team we’re going to have. I think that’s how we have to approach it, that those guys aren’t coming back and obviously we’ll be pleasantly surprised if they come back.”

“I’m not in those medical conversations or anything like that, so I don’t know s–t from s–t. But we’ve got to approach it every game and the end of this season that those guys aren’t coming back and if they do, be pleasantly surprised.”

Party-pooper, downer, call me what you want. I’m just a simple, sad, New York Knicks fan who has not seen this team win a chip and as much as I want it to happen I will believe it only once it happens.

Said Purist__: “No one got hurt, so that’s a win.”

The playoffs can’t come soon enough. Only seven more games to go. Fingers crossed.