Nets 112, Knicks 110: You either put the fire out, or you don’t

The Knicks traveled very slightly east to face off against the conference-leading Nets in a New York showdown. The new-look starting lineup showed out and ultimately came up just short.

At about 7:40 PM last night, I almost burned my house down. I was roasting asparagus as I grilled a steak. I walked out of my kitchen for all of 75 seconds to watch the opening sequence of our beloved Knicks game, when all of the sudden I saw a cloud of smoke appear from the kitchen behind me. I ran back into the kitchen, looked in the oven, and saw the entire sheet of asparagus on fire. Legitimate flames, yellow and fiery, had engulfed the broiling oven. The thing about a fire is this: at the end of the day, it’s binary. You either put it out, or you don’t. 

Twenty-four hours prior, Tom Thibodeau was dealing with a bit of a fire of his own. We’ll never truly know every detail of Kemba Walker’s short homecoming. Did Thibodeau green light the signing? Did the front office push it on him? What kind of under-the-table promises were made to Walker? And did Thibodeau break those by pulling him from the rotation just 20 games into the season? What we do know, unequivocally, is that the Walker experiment has not been working. There isn’t a player or lineup combination that didn’t improve once Walker was removed. And after waiting 50-plus games too long to pull the trigger on a necessary starting lineup change last season, it’s understandable that Thibodeau would not be hesitant to wait this time. 

As anyone reading this knows, Thibodeau decided to replace Walker with Alec Burks in the starting lineup, and in the Knicks’ first game without Walker, they flourished, beating an Atlanta Hawks team that not only vanquished them from their first playoff berth in eight seasons, but had also won seven games in a row and was 8-1 at home. The energy was higher. The ball movement crisper. For the first time all season, the Knicks resembled the team so many Knick fans fell in love with last year. Last night saw the return of Derrick Rose and Nerlens Noel, meaning it would be the first game for Thibodeau to manage his new rotation. What were the early returns? Is there reason for optimism with this lineup change and new rotations? Let’s dive in.

A fast start

The Knicks came out looking to carry over the momentum they had built in Atlanta. Despite two threes and a dunk from the recently struggling James Harden, halfway through the first the Knicks were on top, 18-10. This was led by the man who Knicks fans should be most encouraged to see leading the brigade: Julius Randle. Randle’s energetic output this season has been volatile. Sometimes he’s resembled a jackrabbit, zigzagging through the lane looking to set screens, hand the ball off to a teammate, or attack the basket. It’s as if somebody told him, “these new teammates are going to make your life easier, you won’t have to take those tough contested fade-aways anymore,” and he’s determined to prove them right.

Other times, he’s looked like a man having an existential crisis, longing for the past. Someone who wants nothing more than to go back to a simpler time, one where he had the green light  to fire away as he pleases. But last night, there was none of that. Maybe it was the national television game, or maybe it was the individual matchup with one of the best players in basketball, Kevin Durant. Or maybe Randle really does just play better without Kemba Walker. Regardless, Randle came to play.

The early returns last night, while promising, were also revealing as well. A major theme of last season’s success was simplicity. Almost every player on the team, besides, of course, Randle, had a singular role. Thibodeau built a rotation full of guys (for the most part) where he honed in on their strength and got the best out of them. In a way, you could argue that the first 20 games of this season have been the opposite. As if having better players with more versatile skill sets has made the vision for this team murkier. Gone was the freeness of the flow, replaced by uncertainty. 

The infusion of Alec Burks into the lineup marked a return to that foundation. Burks is a scorer, plain and simple. He’s going to do that until he’s old and grey, hooping at YMCAs and parks like a real life Uncle Drew. Putting him in the starting lineup seemed to remove a burden from Randle’s shoulders. As if it calmed him knowing there was a guy out there he didn’t have to get going, and it allowed him to be more like himself. To be freer. The rest of the team followed suit, and at halftime the Knicks galloped into the locker room ahead of the Nets, 61-60.

The Nerlen(s) Wall

There was a second revelation in last night’s game: Thibodeau remains hesitant to completely abandon playing a rim protector at all times. The Nets don’t have a true center on their roster. LaMarcus Aldridge starts, and while he is still capable of operating on the low block every so often, he does the majority of his damage from the midrange, where he is shooting a ridiculous 60% on the season. With Blake Griffin joining Kemba Walker in Ntilikina-ville, the Nets’ backup center rotation is some combination of Paul Millsap (6-foot-7) and/or James Johnson (6’-foot-8). Obi Toppin (6-foot-9), would be the tallest guy on the court if the Knicks committed to going small. But they don’t do that, so he is not the tallest player on the court.

The Utah Jazz had the best record in basketball last season. And after a hiccup in Game 1 of the first round of the playoffs, they walloped the Memphis Grizzlies by 45 points in their next four games. In the second round, they kept on rolling, taking a 2-0 lead against the Los Angeles Clippers. And then, a funny thing happened. Ty Lue, head coach of the Clippers, realized that there was a way to negate the biggest strength the Jazz employed. I’m talking of course, about the rim protection of All-World defender Rudy Gobert. Lue committed to full games without a center. At times Marcus Morris would be the biggest Clipper on the floor. Lue knew playing that way would force Gobert away from the rim, or create a swarm of open threes, and he was willing to bet that Gobert, a good but heavily-flawed offensive player, would not be able to make them pay on the other end. He was right. And the Clippers, despite an injury to star Kawhi Leonard, won the next four games and advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

Let’s get this out of the way. Nerlens Noel is not Rudy Gobert. In fact, he is not 50% of Rudy Gobert. But he is an elite rim protector. That is unquestionably true. He may even be, over the course of an entire season, the Knicks’ best defender. But there will be times when he simply does not need to be out there. Last night was one of those times. The Nets employed the same strategy Ty Lue did six months ago and found similar success. They pulled Noel from the basket, removing his biggest strength from the equation. All the Knicks were left with were his weaknesses, which shined like the morning sun powering through your window blinds on the first day back to school.

The Knicks’ answer cannot continue to be “do one thing better”. Teams will scheme for them and expose their weaknesses. When that happens, the Knicks need to have a counterpunch. The Nets knew they could pull Noel from the basket, and better yet, they didn’t even have to gamble on Noel beating them on offense like the Clippers did against Gobert; it was a foregone conclusion. Noel played 10 first half minutes and the Knicks were -6 in those minutes, while Toppin played just four, which the Knicks won. Noel may be an elite rim protector, but last night all he did was block Toppin from seeing the floor.

A case of the third quarters

After a first half filled with energy and fight, the Knicks came out of halftime with the same lethargy that has plagued their third quarters all season. After not even four minutes of gameplay and two Thibodeau timeouts, a 61-60 lead had turned into a 74-61 disadvantage. The defensive errors increased, the transition defense reverted to its worst version of itself, and while I think some of the offensive struggle can be credited to a Brooklyn Net defense that was flying around, there were still possessions like this:

(There was no passing on this possession prior to this sequence. Evan Fournier crossed half court, dribbled in place for six seconds, and dumped the ball to Randle in the mid-post.)

If the Knicks are going to make any noise this year, these stretches have to stop. It’s unreasonable to ask them to play perfect basketball for 48 minutes, 82 games of the season. Sometimes shots don’t fall, sometimes lapses happen. That’s okay, it’s a part of the long grind of the season. But you have to control what you can control, and the area you have the most control over is your energy. Sometimes the Knicks appear to be above that. As if they have bought the hype on themselves and believe their talent will win out in the end. Snap out of that. It wasn’t talent that won them games last year, it was intensity. It was living and dying on every possession. It was Tom Thibodeau basketball. The Knicks showed that in the back half of the third quarter, ending it on an 18-6 run to cut the Nets’ lead down to four.

A glimmer of hope

At the 8:06 mark of the fourth quarter, Randle sauntered to the scorer’s table. I can only assume the rest of Knicks Nation was as horrified as I was. Not because Randle, who was mostly magnificent, was re-entering, but because Toppin, after mere eight minutes of gameplay, most of which he was tremendous, would be exiting the game for good. Instead, Randle checked in for Robinson, and what we saw over the next four minutes was something that, despite the final score, can help Knicks fans leave this game with a good taste in their mouth. 

Human beings are a fickle species, everyone has their biases, everyone is looking at events through a different lens. I can almost guarantee you that, somewhere in the back of his mind, Tom Thibodeau watched those four minutes looking for reinforcement that a true rim protector is required. It’s not that he wanted the team to fail. Nor is it that he doesn’t like Obi Toppin. He’s just a human being with preconceived notions and biases, just like anybody else. For Thibodeau to continue opening his mind to this new way of succeeding, something that runs counter to every part of his DNA, these four minutes were huge. There needed to be immediate results. And they got off to a rocky start. 

This is likely Thibodeau’s number one fear of employing the Randle/Toppin combination. Toppin, who has barely played a full NBA season, is still fairly green, so there will be times when elite ball handlers have a red carpet to the basket. I groaned when this play happened, because I assumed Thibodeau, who wants not just to win every game, but to win every possession, would pull the plug on this experiment quickly. Once again, he surprised me. And Toppin rewarded him.

(Look where he starts his sprint, how the hell does he beat everyone up the court?)

We know how this game ended. The Knicks fought and clawed, but, despite a heroic Evan Fournier 3-pointer, came up a possession short. But there are many positives to take away from their performance last night. They went punch for punch with the preseason title favorites in their own arena. In The Clays!

I haven’t even mentioned that RJ Barrett, who started the game strong, was forced to exit early due to an illness. Nor have I mentioned the ridiculous double standard reffing, one where you could not touch James Harden, but Julius Randle was shoved around all night, leading to a 25-12 free throw attempt discrepancy in favor of the Nets. The Knicks were up against it last night.

And yet, they fought. And — perhaps more importantly — for the most part, they executed. They looked like a team that wanted to be out there together, one that was willing to sacrifice for one another. After giving up 60 points in the first half, they held an offense led by two of the greatest scorers this sport has ever seen to 42 points. Their head coach, stubborn to a T, a man who sees everything as a hammer and a nail, saw Plan A was not working and went to the backup plan we’ve all been waiting for.

When I pulled the rack topped with asparagus, garlic salt, and burning flames, from the oven, I sprinted out my side door and tossed it in the grass. Save a white blister on my thumb that throbs even as I type this article, with every collision it makes with the space bar, no harm was done. Will the Knicks’ season go the same? Will the first 20 games of this season be just a bump in the road we will look back on and chuckle at? Only time can tell. But for the first time, I cannot help but feel optimistic at what lies ahead.