After the misery was finished, a fan exiting Madison Square Garden huffed aloud, “I can’t believe we paid for that.”
Another fan in the concourse looked at his friend and shrugged, “At least we got to see Trae Young in those goofy glasses.”
It was that kind of letdown for the Knicks and their fans Wednesday night, when the home team upchucked a 23-point lead and was punished by the Hawks, 112-99.
It was a third straight defeat for the Knicks (3-4) and their worst performance, by far, of the young season. And Young, who wore those glasses in the fourth quarter because he suffered an eye contusion, didn’t even have to deliver the punishment to the Knicks.
Most of it was self-inflected. The rest arrived courtesy of Dejounte Murray.
“Being up 23 at home you obviously expect to win the game,” Julius Randle said. “It’s tough.”
Randle was driving Wednesday night’s struggle bus, missing eight of his 12 shots with four turnovers and just two assists in 30 minutes. But it’d be unfair to single out Randle since the entire the roster was uninspiring and underwhelming.
The Knicks had 17 turnovers, almost double Atlanta’s total. They shot a miserable 41%. There was no silver lining.
Tom Thibodeau kvetched postgame about his team’s transition defense and poor adjustments to Atlanta’s zone defense.
“[The Hawks] are athletic. They’re fast,” Thibodeau said. “I thought initially we matched up well; then we didn’t.”
The Knicks looked like they had the game in-hand early, but the Hawks fought back to turn it around.
“Defensive transition, turnovers, energy, all the things we can control,” Jalen Brunson explained as the team’s biggest issues. “I think honestly we’re not that far off. We got a lot of mental mistakes that we know we can cut down.”
Murray, who was available for the Knicks this summer in the trade market before heading to Atlanta, toyed with the Knicks backcourt while producing 36 points on 14-of-27 shooting with nine assists and six steals. It was the second straight game the Knicks were killed by a player they could’ve traded for in the summer (Donovan Mitchell did the honors first on Sunday).
Young, the No. 1 enemy at MSG these days, only logged 28 minutes because of the eye injury sustained in the third quarter, the consequence of getting raked in the face by Randle. Young returned with glasses in the fourth quarter and finished with 17 points and seven assists.
The vitriol toward Young was more subdued than his previous two appearances at MSG, where “F—k Trae Young” chants served as the soundtrack.
“You guys still talking about that?” said Hawks coach Nate McMillan, whose team improved to 5-3. “Of course he gets excited. I haven’t talked to him about this. Trae feeds off of that. He’s a big moment player. You come to the Garden it’s a big moment, it’s a big place to play. All the good players in the league look forward to coming here and playing and playing well.”
Young was booed Wednesday but the expletives, if they existed, were inaudible. He also gave the fans no reason for venom in the first quarter, when Young missed 10 of his 12 shots and botched a lay-in.
The Knicks pounced and took their 23-point advantage in the second quarter, but momentum shifted before halftime and never swung back.
“We were up 23 or whatever it was, and they obviously cut that down,” Brunson said. “We were easing our way into the second half, and they were putting their foot to the pedal. They were going 100 miles an hour, and we were going 50. We gotta do better at that point.”
()
Source: Berkshire mont
Be First to Comment