5 pm
After the New York Knicks lost their third straight game, and for the fourth time in their last five, against the Denver Nuggets Saturday afternoon, All-Star forward Julius Randle said it's up to him and his teammates to decide what kind of season they want to have.
I have to be better. After the Knicks lost to Denver, New York's loss was deceiving as they trailed by 30 with eight minutes to go. I will take responsibility for the team. I will take responsibility for myself. That doesn't bother me. I just want to win. I know that everyone in that locker room wants to win.
We have to look in the mirror and decide what we want the season to be. I know what I want it to be. I know what the guys want. We have to commit to it, and that's what it is.
The New York Knicks were one of the NBA's biggest surprises last season. The All-Star forward became an All-Star for the first time, while the coach won his second NBA Coach of the Year award, as the team ground out wins behind an elite defense.
The two men said that this is a different team than last season. It is playing like one. After Saturday's loss, New York's defense has fallen from fourth to 19th and the offense has fallen from 22nd to 15th.
The Knicks' R.J. Barrett and the Knicks' Tom Thibodeau harped on the defense as the thing that has to get better after Denver made 20 3-pointers.
When asked what it would take to fix it, he said it would be just our effort. "That's what defense is, just effort." It's up to us to bring the intensity and the desire to play defense and get stops because Thibs is a great defensive mind. We need to find it. That's all.
There's no magic to that. We have to get out of it together. It's everyone.
Where does intensity come from? It comes from the highest levels of effort and concentration. That's where it comes from. We have to do those two things.
The only magic that happened on the court in Madison Square Garden was from the center of the Nuggets.
While his two co-stars in Denver remain out with long-term injuries, Jokic did whatever he wanted to the Knicks, finishing with 32 points, 11 rebound and five assists.
He looked every bit the part of being the NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player -- a performance he mused was benefited, in part, by attending Meadowlands Racetrack Friday night to take in some harness racing.
He said that he was inspired by his trip to the track and that nine drivers came to watch the game.
I might need to go to the horses every time I travel. Maybe the front office needs to check that out.
The Knicks were left to pick up the pieces after yet another loss while Denver sorted out future tracks for Jokic. There were positives to take away from Tuesday's loss in Brooklyn, but there was nothing positive to take away from this one.
Jokic's presence was a reminder that the Knicks can't rely on one player to win games. They need to play as a collective unit at both ends of the court.
"We're going to win games with our defense," said Randle, who scored 24 points to go with seven rebound and eight assists. That's who we are. We're not the superstars like Brooklyn or any of the other teams. We are a team. We have to win games with our defense, how we were last year, and how we have to be this year as well.
In order to win games, we need to play really hard. We have to win games on defense. If our offense is good. That is a bonus. The culture of this team is just fighting defensively, the togetherness, the effort, and the hustle plays. The city of New York loves that. That's what the fans like, when they know we're out there giving it our all.
The New York fans booed the Knicks throughout the game and especially after they cut Denver's lead to 69-63 early in the third quarter, but the Nuggets responded with a 23-3 run.
Jokic sat for the entire fourth quarter. Even though the game was well in hand, Thibodeau went back to the same group of players.
Kemba Walker has been a healthy scratch in each of the last three games. If the Knicks don't start turning things around, other changes could follow, but the decision to drop Walker from the rotation won't be changing.
There may be more changes coming if we're not performing well. That's the thing. I like the way our group approaches it. We put our stuff together. We have to work our way out of it together. That's how it is.
The Knicks can't dismiss the fact that their record is now below.500 and they're in the Eastern Conference. New York is now in 11th place and one game under.500 after Saturday's loss, which puts them two games out of sixth place and one out of a three-way tie for eighth in the East.
The Knicks will take the next couple days to sort things out and then head to San Antonio, Indiana and Toronto for a three-game road trip starting Tuesday.
"I'm not too worried about it because every team has a game or two like this during the season," he said. We just have to fight. All that doesn't matter at the end of the day.
We have to play defense. We have to fight and fight together for the whole game.
