From Marc Berman:
The Knicks were without Derrick Rose — and a pulse.
This pandemic season finally crushed the Knicks on Tuesday, with Rose’s COVID-19-related absence demonstrating how a player can go from invisible to prominent in an eye-blink.
Just a week ago, Frank Ntilikina hadn’t played since late December — felled by a knee sprain, COVID-19 protocols and being yanked from the rotation.
Tuesday in San Antonio, the Frenchman became the Knicks’ starting point guard, and may be for the foreseeable future.
Though Ntilikina held up his end of the bargain with 13 points, 5 of 7 from the field and 3 of 3 from 3-point range, the undermanned Knicks were awful in the second half and their three-game winning streak was snapped in an ugly 119-93 loss at AT&T Center.
“You get what you deserve,’’ Tom Thibodeau said.
The Spurs are a good team and Pop is one of the greatest coaches in NBA history, so this really wasn’t a particularly surprising result, especially once the Knicks were officially out both of their starting point guards.
Still, you hate to see an ass-whupping, no matter what, especially from a team playing without a star player, as well (LaMarcus Aldridge, who is now the lone NBA player left from the draft picks that the Knicks traded for Eddy Curry, as former Knick Joakim Noah is now retired, although the Knicks are still paying Noah through next season) and who played an overtime game just last night.
Z-Man mentioned Chuck Connors, so I thought I’d share a fun story about him that I wrote about years ago.