After a cancelation yesterday, the Knicks are back in action, hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Garden tonight. The two worst teams of 2021 had been the Wolves and the Magic and the Knicks just lost to the Magic, so you obviously can’t totally look past the Wolves and just as obviously, the Wolves have been a lot better now that they have Karl-Anthony Towns back (he’s basically the straw that stirs the drink for the Wolves), but they’re still pretty damn bad. Number one pick, Anthony Edwards, had one of the nicest dunks you’ll ever see in a big moment in a game the other day, but he also missed all seven three pointers he took. He is r-a-w raw. The team is basically a two-man team of Towns (legit superstar) and Malik Beasley (dirtbag who is kind of good) and that’s a really sad statement about how bad the Wolves are right now.
The Knicks, meanwhile, have had three straight days of practice to better integrate Derrick Rose into the offense and come up with ways to do things differently than simply have Taj Gibson step into Nerlens Noel as the backup center, so we might actually get to see some Julius Randle at center and either Obi Toppin at the 4 or even Kevin Knox play a little 4. If there is ever a team that you can experiment against, it is the Minnesota Timberewolves.
Also, of course, the Wolves fired Thibs and then promptly made a point of reversing every move he made as Team President, so you know this game means a lot to Thibs and when something means a lot to Thibs, he will often go the extra mile.
So…yeah, no game is ever a sure thing, but man, this is pretty dang close to it.
Let’s go get back within a game of .500, Knicks!