From time to time it is perfectly enchanting to play such a game, to receive a team like these Sacramento Kings in your home, because in many ways they are like the perfect enemy of the game Homecoming They are fun to watch, with a lot of amazing stars filling.
And I can’t watch a stop sign.
This is how a team that will never be confused for Paul Westhead’s old Loyola Marymount teams can score 140 points in a single basketball game, as the Knicks did before a satisfying rally of just under 2,000. fans at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night.
There were times when Tom Thibodeau, the whispering coach of the defense, looked as if he could blacken out by watching the Knicks 121 surrender, but only the coaches really care about such games. As long as the host team finishes on the left side of the hyphen, customers will be happy. And the Knicks, for the third time in 10 days, dragged themselves into a .500 game.
“We’re getting there,” Thibodeau said.
At 16-17, the Knicks are also slowly moving toward the middle of the season, three shy games of 36, so we’ve officially reached the point where we can ask ourselves, with data and information and 33 testimonials, exactly what our recalibrated standard . for this season should be.
Is it still OK to focus exclusively on the process?
Now is it OK to focus on the possibility of the playoffs?
“I would say just as important,” Thibodeau had said about 90 minutes before the game. “I do not want to get lost and go too far. I just want to focus on what we have in front of us. I think you start the season with [playoffs] in mind and all the things you need to do.
“You want to build these habits consistently. Practicing well is important, to know your opponent well. If you start moving away from that and start looking too far down the road, then you will be cut off and fall. ”
Fair enough. However, the gains made it much more common to win than someone thought realistic in Thibodeau’s first year. Remember, by the virtual consensus in Vegas, an Over / Under number of 22.5 victories was awarded. I’m well ahead of this pace. In fact, they are square in the middle of an Eastern conference that, right now, seems to be divided into three different castes:
Clear Elite: Sixers, Nets and (despite some weak games recently) Bucks.
The teams that quarreled, but logic and common sense insist on going straight and making a comfortable push to the top five: Celtics and Heat.
Fight for slots from 6 to 10.
And there the Knicks season becomes extremely interesting, because on Friday morning they find themselves tied with the Raptors for the fifth place, engaged in a fight that will surely be seven teams for the last five places in the playoffs in the East. At the moment, the Knicks, Pacers, Raptors, Bulls, Hornets, Hawks and Magic are three losses behind each other in the standings. Five of those seven will come in (assuming you don’t think Washington’s recent change is permanent; if you do, five out of eight).
All of these teams have flaws and flaws, much in the way they have Knicks. None of those teams have a reasonable chance of making any noise in the playoffs, assuming things are as they will probably be in the second half. And so everyone will ask themselves the same thing:
The process over the playoffs?
Playoffs over trial?
Both?
Both are ideal. But are they both realistic?
“Just think about what it means to win every day and build the right habits,” Thibodeau said before the game.
“We’re getting there,” he said twice.
Where, in the end? On Saturday, the Pacers come to the garden and suddenly there are a lot of interesting things in the game. Another crack at .500. A chance to beat a team in that crowded pile of contenders and competitors waiting to be sifted to one side or the other in the next few months.
And, of course: working at the trial, which means keeping an eye on the award, which means not going too far ahead of them. He still thinks about the playoffs that exist only in dreams with fever. Maybe I can coexist in the end.