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The New York Knicks were in a position to capture an impressive upset win over the surging Sixers on Sunday; the kind of win that could spark a major turnaround to close out the season. Instead, the team did the same thing it has throughout its woeful campaign.
After trailing by double digits at various points over the first three quarters, New York battled back to take a 98-95 lead at the 10-minute mark of the final frame. And at the six-minute mark, it was still just a one-possession game for Tom Thibodeau’s crew.
By night’s end, they were 16-point losers, and losers of five straight games (not to mention 15 of their last 18).
For his part, Evan Fournier — who played well in the game, scoring 24 points on 9-of-16 shooting — has observed some disturbing crunch-time trends amid the backslide.
Fournier Gets Real About His Team’s Execution
After the game, Fournier confessed to the reporters that the Knicks don’t have the habits or even the belief in themselves and what they’re doing to finish games properly.
“Down the stretch, we have no confidence, so we are second-guessing at times,” Fournier revealed. “It should be second nature, ‘Boom, boom, boom, this is what we’re doing.’ As long as we are not going like that it’s going to be hard to close out games against teams that are good.”
He couldn’t express enough that “boom-boom-boom” isn’t close to what’s happening on the court right now. Instead of operating as a unit, it’s a bunch of individuals, and each guy is unsure about what the next is doing.
“I feel like sometimes we’re looking at each other, second-guessing what play we’re going to run, who we’re going to go to,” Fournier added. “What is he going to do? We have no expectations right now from each other because we have no rhythm and no confidence in the fourth quarter.
“As long as we don’t fix that as players, things are not going to change.”
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The Fourth Quarter Numbers Are Ugly
New York has been running at a deficit for a while now, which is probably to be expected given the struggles of Julius Randle and Kemba Walker, Derrick Rose’s injury, the lack of a legitimate floor general to lead the charge down the stretch, et al.
However, the club’s numbers have cratered recently, particularly where closing is concerned.
Over their last 18 games, the Knicks have been outscored by 15.2 points per 100 possessions during fourth quarters. Only the Spurs and the Rockets have been worse during that stretch. It’s a massive drop-off from their (also terrible) overall net rating of minus-6.8 over the same time frame.
Meanwhile, their fourth-quarter effective field goal percentage in those games checks in at a league-worst 44.0 and their assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.35:1 ranks 29th overall.
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