With 20 games left, depleted Knicks in standings dogfight: ‘We’re going to get guys back soon’
Twenty.
That’s how many regular-season games the Knicks have left.
It’s the number of opportunities a depleted New York roster will get to retain its playoff standing.
The free-fall is in full effect at Madison Square Garden, where a Knicks team without its entire starting frontcourt has lost nine of its last 12 games — including Tuesday’s 16-point loss to the No. 10 Atlanta Hawks in a matchup both Jalen Brunson (bruised knee) and Trae Young (hand surgery) missed due to injury.
Without Brunson — who luckily evaded a serious injury and is working to return to play soon — a Knicks team already short Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder), OG Anunoby (right elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (left ankle surgery) couldn’t expose a porous Atlanta Hawks defense.
It was one of the Knicks’ ugliest losses of the season.
Such is the status quo — ugly — at The Garden of Dreams, where a roster stretched thin is beginning to reach its limits.
And while it’s unfair to cast higher expectations onto a team missing such core players, the Knicks — shorthanded or not — still need every win they can get, with Tuesday’s inexplicable loss to Atlanta a costly blunder in the standings.
The Orlando Magic, who own the season series against the Knicks, 3-0, leapfrogged New York as the new fourth seed in the East on Tuesday.
The Knicks have fallen to fifth and are only a half-game ahead of the No. 6 Miami Heat.
No. 7 Philadelphia and No. 8 Indiana are within striking distance, too, and 76ers MVP Joel Embiid is expected to return from a meniscus injury soon.
Only 1.5 games separate No. 4 Orlando from No. 8 Indiana, which means the fifth-place Knicks are closer to falling to eighth in East than they are to climbing to the No. 3 seed.
Make no mistake: The No. 3 seed is in play the second Randle, Anunoby and Brunson suit up in the starting lineup once again — and bonus points if Robinson is able to return as a dominant force in the paint this season.
A mostly healthy Knicks team won 13 games in the 16 immediately following the Anunoby trade.
The front office then traded Quentin Grimes, Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono and a pair of second-round picks at the deadline to the Detroit Pistons for Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks.
When healthy, the Knicks project as a deep team, solid on both ends of the floor with an emphasis on threes and rebounding.
And they are led by players coaches voted into the 2024 All-Star Game in Brunson and Randle, who couldn’t attend due to his shoulder injury.
The Knicks know their fortunes will turn the moment they get their horses back on the floor.
“At the end of the day, I feel if this team gets healthy, we can make noise,” veteran forward Josh Hart said after Tuesday’s loss to the Hawks. “Obviously, you don’t want to be in The Play-In. You’d like to have that three or five days of rest going into the first round.
“It’s a cliché Thibs thing, but we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. Obviously, we’re going to get guys back soon, but we have to keep pushing. At the end of the day, we are where we are, and I like this team.”
Which brings us back to the magic number: 20. Twenty games left to decide the Knicks’ standing.
Of those 20 games, 11 are against teams with winning records.
And of those 11 games, seven come in the month of March, with three in a row coming Friday against the Magic, then games both Sunday and Tuesday at home against the Sixers.
Another three will cap a four-game road trip, beginning in Portland then hitting Sacramento, Golden State and Denver, home of the reigning NBA champions.
Injury timelines on Randle and Anunoby are not yet clear, though it would appear Anunoby is further along the rehab process than Randle.
The Knicks are hopeful at least one of the two are back before the end of the month. If both were to return by March 30, the Knicks would have nine games mostly healthy to regain chemistry heading into the playoffs.
Now for some housekeeping.
It would behoove the Knicks not to finish with a seed destined to meet the league-best Boston Celtics in the second round.
Seeds six and seven avoid the Celtics until the Conference Finals, as do seeds two and three, though the Knicks are likely out of the running given their injury situation.
The shorthanded Knicks, of course, cannot be picky. With Randle, Anunoby and Robinson out due to injury, New York will be lucky not to fall into Play-In Tournament territory before their stars return to the court.
And when they do, the process begins all over again.
Randle, for example, is a bruiser who throws his right shoulder into his opponent’s chest. How will he adjust his game now with a shoulder in potential need of offseason surgery?
Anunoby hit a good scoring rhythm shortly before he left the rotation. He’ll need time to find his flow again, too.
And after being thrust into roles requiring more output, players like Hart, Deuce McBride, Precious Achiuwa and Bogdanovic will need to re-adjust to playing alongside the stars.
Just 20 games left, maybe less than half after the Knicks get some familiar faces back on the roster.
It’s a tight window, but if any team has proven an ability to adapt on the fly, it’s these Knicks, who are biding time until their stars return to save the day.
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