Getty RJ Barrett #9 and Immanuel Quickley #5 of the New York Knicks
Midway through the fourth quarter of the New York Knicks‘ 129-120 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 27, Immanuel Quickley’s floater kept the New York Knicks within striking distance of a vastly improved team on the road.
Quickely’s floater was his 22nd point of the game. The Knicks’ Sixth Man was on a heater.
But a minute later, Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams started his fourth-quarter explosion with a pull-up jumper over Quickley, giving the Thunder a 113-106 cushion.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau quickly pulled out a red-hot Quickley and re-inserted a cold RJ Barrett.
“You’re gonna finish with different guys. It’s what the game needs,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau told reporters about the pivotal decision. “Sometimes, it’s matchups. Sometimes, someone’s got it going. Sometimes, you need size; you’re looking at the switching you’re doing.”
“They have length with their wings, right? And so, you’re going to be doing some switching. And so you’re trying to match up that way.”
The 6-foot-5 Williams punished the Knicks with 17 points in the fourth quarter. Thibodeau tried everyone on him from Quickley to Josh Hart and Barrett to no avail.
“That’s the challenge,” Thibodeau said of the Knicks having a deep roster. “We have good players. It’s easy to sit there and say, ‘Well, this guy should have played more,’ and you can certainly make a case for people because when they’re playing well, that’s a natural question. But who you’re taking out? Because you can’t just keep adding without taking out.”
“I know it’s not easy, but it’s also what’s best for the team. So you’re asking everyone to sacrifice and put the team first. So and for the most part, I think our guys have handled that well.”
Knicks’ Quick Downfall
What came next was the Knicks letting go of the rope immediately after Quickley went out.
Barrett turned the ball over two seconds into his re-insertion to the game. Then he missed a 3-pointer in the next Knicks offensive play. Sealing their fate was a back-to-back 3-pointer from Williams for an 11-point Thunder lead with 2:38 left.
Barrett finally hit a 3-pointer before the final two minutes that snapped his 0-of-6 shooting from the outside. But it came a little too late.
“You’re asking guys to sacrifice because you can only put five out there. And so that’s the way you roll with it. We need everyone. We need everyone to play well. So that’s what we did,” Thibodeau said.
Not everyone played well, two days after the Knicks’ massive Christmas Day victory over the Milwaukee Bucks at Madison Square Garden.
After Barrett snapped a cold spell in December with 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting against the Bucks, he continued his inconsistent form against the Thunder.
The 23-year-old Barrett finished with only 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting, including a 1-0f-7 outing from behind the arc in Oklahoma City. The former no. 3 pick was a minus-9 while the smaller but more consistent Quickley shot 7-of-10 and a plus-2 on the night the Knicks played catchup since the opening minutes.
Thunder’s Quick Rise vs Knicks’ Steady Buildup
The Thunder’s 129-120 win over the Knicks catapulted them to second place in the loaded Western Conference with a 20-9 record — a quick rise for Sam Presti’s rebuild after trading away franchise cornerstone Russell Westbrook in 2019.
Armed with tons of draft picks, Presti built through the draft and hit jackpots with Chet Holmgren, who had 22 against the Knicks and Williams, who scored a career-high 36 points.
The young duo perfectly complements the Thunder’s MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Presti’s prized acquisition from the Paul George trade in 2019.
Over the same four-year span, the 17-13 Knicks, currently seventh in the East, also made steady progress under rookie front office executive Leon Rose.
But unlike Presti, who tanked his way to finding gems like Holmgren and Williams, Rose steadily built a playoff contender in New York around holdovers Julius Randle, Barrett and oft-injured center Mitchell Robinson. The addition of Jalen Brunson as their marquee free agent acquisition pushed them into the second round last season.
Except for Quickley, Rose’s draft resume has more misses than hits.
Both teams are in a great position to trade for a star. But the Thunder have a deeper draft capital and a younger core with a higher ceiling.