Day: February 13, 2021

From Peter Botte:

A costly weekend due to Mitchell Robinson’s injury still resulted in two important wins against undermanned opponents for the Knicks.

Immanuel Quickley connected on four 3-pointers and scored 22 points — while replacement centers Nerlens Noel and Taj Gibson played well in the first game without Robinson — as the Knicks’ depth led them to a convincing 121-99 victory Saturday night over the Rockets at the Garden.

Derrick Rose contributed 16 points off the bench as the Knicks (13-15) took advantage of Victor Oladipo’s absence for Houston due to a foot and ankle injury, just as they had the previous night against the Wizards without NBA scoring leader Bradley Beal.

Julius Randle also scored 22 points and Elfrid Payton added 15 for the Knicks, who will host the Hawks on Monday. John Wall led the Rockets (11-15) with 26 points, while Eric Gordon finished with 24.

Isn’t it weird that the example they use is Victor Oladipo when it’s clearly Christian Wood’s absence that the Rockets are feeling the most?

Anyhow, fine victory. A lot better than the Washington game, where the Knicks just sort of sleepwalked through and were just lucky that the Wizards are beyond terrible. This was a nice, balanced effort against a bad team (but not an insanely bad team).

Derrick Rose had another strong game and Immanuel Quickley broke out of his recent shooting slump to nail a bunch of big threes, especially scoring 6 points as the Knicks went 8-1 after the Wizards cut the lead to five in the third quarter. That proved to be as much as the Rockets could muster (Boogie and Wall looked exhausted after that big burst to get it within 5).

The Knicks have a nice easy stretch here, so they actually have a chance of getting to .500! The last time the Knicks were at .500 this lat in a season was the year Porzingis got hurt after making the All-Star team.

After tonight’s game, one of these two teams will be two games under .500 and the other will be four games under .500. So it’s not exactly like the 1994 NBA Finals here (or that amazing 1995 regular season rematch in the Garden that the Knicks won 122-117, which was quite the high-scoring affair back then. Can anyone name the Knicks starting five in that game? I’d be surprised if anyone could).

Ian Begley reports that Nerlens Noel will be moving into the starting lineup to replace the injured Mitchell Robinson, who got relatively good news about surgery on his broken hand, as it sounds like we’ll see Mitch again in about 20 or so games. I love that Begley has to “report” that. Who in the world else would be starting? Hopefully, though, Obi Toppin gets a little more court time in the absence of Mitch, perhaps paired with Randle at the 5 a little? Or even as a small ball 5 himself.

The Rockets, like the Knicks, have been winning games (or not losing as many games) with defense, so this will be an interesting matchup. When it comes to defense vs. defense, I tend to think Thibs’ teams will always have the advantage, but we shall see!

I was noting earlier today that, due to the play-in tournament, the odds of the Knicks getting the #10 seed have to be extremely high at this point, right? Their only competition is the Bulls, the Cavs and the injury-ravaged Magic. That’s not much in the way of competition, right? So I think the odds are strong that we will see the Knicks play in the “playoffs” this year, much as the Wizards would have last year, so, you know, something to shoot for!

Let’s go be the one who gets to be two under and not four under, Knicks!