The New York Knicks are right up there with the Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings as a candidate for the most dysfunctional team in the NBA. Between an ineffective coaching style stubbornly enforced by a controlling team president and a confusing collection of overpaid and outdated players, the Knicks are a mess.
The Knicks’ dysfunction culminated in Sunday’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets; losing to their long-time rivals who also happen to be the very worst team in basketball can certainly be viewed as a microcosm of the Knicks’ season. Kristaps Porzingis, perhaps the lone beacon of hope on this desolate team, described a sense of mass confusion throughout the organization. From Al Iannazzone of Newsday:
Porzingis spoke candidly and said the Knicks “don’t know the triangle that well.”
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“We’ve been switching things up because at any point of this season, we never played like we wanted to,” Porzingis said after fouling out with 19 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks. “It was like, ‘Maybe this will work. Maybe this will work.’ So we’re kind of looking for stuff.
“Coaches, they obviously try to do the best job they can and give us as much as they can so we have the information. But we never really got it all together and were able to execute the way we should have. It’s been a lot of confusion.”
Porzingis said the confusion is “from top to bottom. A lot of stuff that’s not clear. So it’s hard to play like that.”
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“The situation is tough,” Porzingis said. “We’re not doing the right things. We’re just not working together right now. We need to find solutions. Whatever 16, 15 games we have left, we have to give everything we have so we can finish the season not regretting anything.”
The Knicks have now lost each of their last three games, and are more or less out of playoff contention. Their 26-41 record has them at 10th in the East, and they’re seven games behind the Milwaukee Bucks for the no. 8 seed.
