From Greg Joyce:
The Knicks struggled with blowing leads during the three-game losing streak they lugged into Detroit on Saturday night.
This time, however, they were able to quickly build such an insurmountable advantage that coach Tom Thibodeau even let Julius Randle rest for the entire fourth quarter.
Randle had come out on fire and delivered a blistering first quarter to spark the Knicks to a wire-to-wire 125-81 win over the Pistons at Little Caesars Arena.
The 44-point win marked the Knicks’ largest margin of victory since a 46-point win over the Raptors in 1996. The one got the Knicks (25-25) back to .500 and snapped them out of their three-game funk.
I say it so much that it feels like a broken record, but if all you do is beat the bad teams, that’s still very good, as most NBA teams have occasional struggles with bad teams. It’s why the term “trap game” exists in the first place.
So this was a very good win. Now, is it even better to then also beat some good teams? Of course, but you gotta walk before you run and after a dominant performance like this, it is more of a strut than a walk. Very, very nice win.