Knicks 125, Heat 109: Sigh
The Knicks are used to winning. Now they play the waiting game for news on Julius Randle’s shoulder.
In August of 2006, Philadelphia Phillie centerfielder Aaron Rowand broke his ankle in a collision with teammate Chase Utley. I remember it clear as day because about six weeks earlier, I broke my ankle in a baseball game, too – exactly same bone as Rowand, the talus. I hopped back to the dugout, then tried to hop back to the diamond when our team re-took the field. Only then did I realize I couldn’t walk. After the game I hopped up a comically steep hill to get to my car, stopped for a sandwich and a newspaper, drove home and ate lunch. I swore it was just sore, but my family convinced me to see a doctor, which was when I learned I’d broken my talus bone.
I spent the rest of the summer on crutches. When Rowand broke his talus, he looked like he’d ben shot in the foot. He writhed, his anguish obvious and severe. I wondered, “Am I tougher than Aaron Rowand?” Reader, I’m not. It’s just that the same injuries hit different people differently.
I use misdirection a lot when writing recaps, maybe too much, especially at the start. But there’s the rub with misdirection: the more you go there, the less of a surprise it is. I figured with the New York Knicks facing the Miami Heat yesterday, this recap would get to the game specifics pretty quickly, especially given the game’s broader brushstrokes: Knicks are up most of the game; Heat storm back to tie it late in the third; Knicks dominate the rest of the way. I certainly didn’t expect to be talking about a baseball player from almost 20 years ago. But here we are.
Where are we, exactly? Nobody knows. Waiting on an MRI after Julius Randle dislocated his right shoulder in the Knicks’ 125-109 win yesterday. Randle was injured after landing on his shoulder following a drive to the basket. Jaime Jaquez Jr. tried to draw a charge, Randle landed and it was immediately apparent this was no small fall. X-rays after the game were clear, but the fear is the MRI could show enough damage that Randle needs surgery and misses the rest of this season.
In the wake of the injury and the wait for word on its extent, Knicks fans have been very publicly going through all different stages of grief. Let me share some thoughts to hopefully help guide you through all this.
People are different & so are their bodies
As noted with Rowand’s talus, you never know how someone will respond to an injury. Look up every NBA player who missed time after dislocating their shoulder and you’re no closer to knowing how Randle will fare than someone lighting a candle for him today at St. Patrick’s. It’s not easy to remember this, especially with Google and Twitter and podcasts everywhere promising you answers for any- and everything you’ve ever longed to know. But we just won’t know till we know.
On the one hand, Randle is as durable a star as the Knicks have ever had. Last year he rushed back from a badly injured ankle late in the season to play in Game 1 of the Knicks/Cavs series. After re-injuring the same ankle late in that series, he missed Game 1 against Miami but played the other five games. On the other hand, will bettering biology tends to be the upset, not the norm. There’s reason to hope, but no use projecting best- or worst-case scenarios at this point.
Jaquez did nothing wrong & neither did Thibs
Two of the quickest takes after Randle was hurt were that Jaquez did him dirty trying to draw the charge when he did and that Tom Thibodeau shouldn’t have had his starters in up 17 with about four minutes.
This second take demonstrates an almost preternatural lack of short-term memory. Late in the third, the Heat were down 13; it took them a little over three minutes to tie it. Personally, if I were an NBA coach and my players were down with it, I would be the trailblazer who pushes to see how early you can pull your starters and still win a blowout. I’ve struggled with the specific fear of a key Knick getting hurt late in a non-competitive game literally since the 1990s; that’s my cross to bear. Thibs has certainly been extreme in such cases, leaving his starters in till the last minute of blowouts and sometimes even bringing them back in after they’d been sitting. Yesterday was not that.
As far as Jaquez, we can tie this back to baseball. If a team is up 10-0 in the eighth inning and their batter swings at a 3-0 pitch, tempers flare; the losing dugout is sure to start bellyaching and the pitcher will likely throw at the hitter for his lack of decorum, the thinking being if the game’s out of reach, respect that. Yet the team down 10-0 doesn’t tell their hitters to lay down and quit. If the winner is still trying, the loser has every right to.
If Randle wasn’t letting his foot off the gas, the Heat didn’t owe the Knicks their surrender. And if the Knicks were down 17 with four minutes left and Jalen Brunson tried drawing a charge on Jimmy Butler, the only complaint Knicks fans might have is Brunson risking injury; if Butler took a bad fall, no one would blame JB for still trying. You don’t have to like Jaquez. But he didn’t do anything wrong.
OG Anunoby is not God
One of the more popular responses to Randle’s injury so far has been “This is actually fine; plug OG in at the 4 and we’re good. Plus this will give him and other Knicks the chance to create more, which will only help come playoff time.” I’m reminded of the first time I got dumped, at 18, and rather than face up to the hurt, I spent the first 24 hours in a euphoric delusion, rationalizing how losing the then-love of my life and center of my universe was really a very lucky break.
It wasn’t.
I survived, natch. But take this hard-earned life lesson: be careful not to confuse your optimism with self-delusion. There likely will be more shot creation responsibilites on OG. There will be on Brunson. Donte DiVincenzo. Maybe Quentin Grimes, Miles McBride and Josh Hart, too. That’s obvious: Randle’s averaged over 18 shots per game this season, second only to Brunson. The next-highest Knick? Anunoby, at a little over 11 a game since the trade.
If you’re a scout for a team playing the Knicks next week, do you think reporting “Randle’s out; look out for more aggressiveness from Anunoby, Hart, McBride, etc.” would cause your team to worry? The Raptors aren’t the greatest organization in the history of pro sports, but they’re also not dummies. If Anunoby were sitting on some hidden oil field worth of shot-creation skills, they wouldn’t have tapped that well years ago? The Knicks are going to be without a 25-point-a-game scorer who’s pretty much unguardable in the paint and not much more fun to defend beyond that. If the Knicks’ scoring production does hold steady, their efficiency will likely foot the bill.
Obviously I’m not saying all is lost. NBA history is rife with players who showed repertoires we weren’t expecting, because NBA players are amazing basketball players who can usually do more than what they’re restricted to. Painters often sculpt, too; many musicians can play more than one instrument. John Starks was a two-guard who showed he could play some point. Ditto J.R. Smith. Look at how Isaiah Hartenstein blossomed with greater responsibility. It happens all the time.
Anunoby faces a few specific challenges as the likely successor to Randle at the 4-spot. Depending how the starting lineup is re-jiggered, does OG move up the pecking order as far as shot creators? Do the Knicks look to stay big in the frontcourt and replace Randle with, say, Jericho Sims? If they do, how does Anunoby look going from pairing with an All-NBA scorer to someone who is very much not? Or do they go small, playing OG at 4 and promoting Grimes to the starting lineup alongside DDV? If they do, does the bench, newly resplendent the past few games after a rough stretch post-trade, slide back to how it looked a week or two ago?
Also, Randle is not often credited with being an important part of the Knicks defense, and he’s certainly no linchpin. But defensive possessions end with defensive rebounds, and Randle ranks ninth in the league in those. His defensive and offensive rebounding rates are more than twice as high as OG’s. Can New York’s transcendent defender continue to wreak havoc while also paying more responsibility to the glass? Hartenstein just returned from an injured left Achilles; without Randle, the Knicks are one big’s injury away from needing to light an entire cathedral of prayer candles.
Stop trying to make “Markkanen” happen. It isn’t going to happen
Which brings us to to weirdest rationalization I’ve seen: that Randle’s injury accelerates the timetable for a Knicks/Jazz trade for Lauri Markkanen. Again, we’re all dealing with grief today. I’m not here to tell you how to process. Just asking you not to abandon reality while you do.
The price for Markkanen, according to everyone with a mildly informed opinion on the matter, remains exorbitant. What do you think Danny Ainge will do if the Knicks come calling now for his best player? Lower the price out of the goodness of his heart? Hell no; he’ll push for more! Multiple young players (goodbye, Quentin), multiple unprotected firsts and maybe some swaps, too. And for what? The Finn makes no sense on this roster.
He might have, before the OG trade. Cleveland had success two years ago with their jumbo frontline of Jarrett Allen, Evan Mobley and Markkanen, and that’s with two of those dudes being unable to shoot. The thought of a Julius/Lauri forward combo caused any fan with a taste for skilled size to start salivating. Post-OG, though, it makes no sense.
If Randle ends up done for the season, you might argue in favor of the trade; the Knicks are on the climb, and there’s value in fielding a competitive roster and seeing how far it can go. Maybe they face Boston or Milwaukee late in the Eastern playoffs and learn something about themselves that helps them build for the future. But what about when Randle returns? Then what?
You can’t play Randle, Markkanen and Anunoby all in the same lineup: given that all three of them and Brunson will be signing new deals in the next couple years, how many of them can you afford to pay? Maybe before the latest CBA James Dolan would have thrown caution to the wind and maxxed them all out, luxury tax be damned. But in a world where the rich protect themselves against any consequence while feeding the rest of us to the hell they’re creating, NBA owners can’t do that without being penalized by bleeding out of their orifices, thanks to the new fan- player- owner-friendly CBA.
And before you Stalinist five-year plan types pipe up with “They can just trade Randle once they have Markkanen!”, a reminder there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your half-baked ideas. Since signing with New York in 2019, Randle has played in 330 of their 348 regular-season games. That’s 95%. If the Knicks response to their two-time All-Star and two-time All-NBA selection (might’ve been three after this year) having his latest brilliant season cut short by a freak injury is to get rid of him and replace him with a man who’s played in as many NBA playoff games as you have? And then max that guy out? Then this is what future stars lining up to come to NYC and play under Thibs will look like.
Next game is Tuesday when the Knicks host the Hornets, followed Wednesday by the Jazz. Odds are Markkanen will be on a flight somewhere else Thursday. Odds are later today we’ll hear the news on Randle. Fingers crossed. All 10 of ‘em.
