NEW YORK — If you know your New York Knicks history, the sight of Latrell Sprewell sitting in a baseline seat next to owner James Dolan on Sunday was surreal. But if you’ve studied the Knicks this season, what unfolded on the court at Madison Square Garden over the next two-and-a-half hours was even more stunning.
The Knicks, losers of 20 of their past 27 games, owners of one of the league’s worst defenses, main characters in one of the worst off-court dramas in professional sports right now, somehow managed to beat the NBA’s model franchise on Sunday.
And they did it by playing defense, no less.
Somehow, a Knicks team that had given up an average of 126 points this week limited the San Antonio Spurs to 36 percent shooting in a 94-90 win.
Beating one of the best teams in the NBA allowed the players — for a few hours — to escape the negative stigma associated with the franchise over the past week.
“We had a big, negative cloud above us for a while now, and we was letting that get to us,” Courtney Lee said. “Some guys can say they don’t pay attention to all this stuff. But at some point, you get tired of it. And so for us to come out and get a win against the Spurs is huge — maybe what we need to turn this thing around.”
Sunday’s win left the Knicks 3.5 games out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. It also left the players feeling upbeat about making a playoff run after the All-Star break.
Given that the Knicks own their 2017 first-round draft pick, the better play for the long-term health of the franchise would probably be to lose games and improve their chances of landing a top pick in a guard-heavy draft.
But this is a team of veterans that isn’t concerned with how the roster is going to look in 2021. They want to make a playoff run.
“I still feel optimistic,” Brandon Jennings said earlier this week.
Of course, whether Jennings, Carmelo Anthony and the other veterans are here after the Feb. 23 trade deadline is an open question.
The Knicks’ discussions with opposing teams about potential Anthony trades have been well-documented. If Anthony is available, the club is certainly looking at all options and trade scenarios involving any player not named Kristaps Porzingis. The club has 10 days to put together a deal that’s worth making in the eyes of team president Phil Jackson. On the Anthony front, the Knicks had been exchanging proposals with one interested team as recently as last week, according to sources.
Check out the team site for more game coverage
Check out the team site for more game coverage
Whether Anthony is willing to waive his no-trade clause is another issue. Some members of the organization feel that he won’t want to give Jackson the satisfaction of having forced him out of New York.
Anthony is tired of talking publicly about his no-trade clause and said earlier this week that he hadn’t thought about it because Knicks management hadn’t discussed any trade proposals with him. The star forward was asked Sunday evening if he’d thought about the possibility that he had played his final home game as a Knick.
“Oh, come on, man. Don’t start that,” he told the reporter who asked the question.
The questions probably aren’t going anywhere, but Anthony rightfully preferred to focus on the present after beating San Antonio. He and other players pointed to a film session during Saturday’s practice in which players — rather than coaches — pointed out mistakes and reassured one another that those mistakes were correctable.
“It’s huge hearing it from you peers instead of just the same voice,” Lee said. “… You hear the guys that you’re out there competing with and battling with telling you, ‘I need you to do this. I need you to do that. If you do this, I’ll do this for you.’ That’s how it’s supposed to be. It was definitely beneficial for us.”
The Knicks also tweaked their pick-and-roll coverage a bit after Saturday’s practice. Rather than having the big sit back, they allowed him to engage, trusting the weak side defender to help if needed.
“I think the trust came out tonight,” Jeff Hornacek said.
For one afternoon, it certainly did. Is it sustainable? Who knows?
But after a week in which the Knicks made headlines for all the wrong reasons, it was a welcome diversion for everyone involved.
“I wouldn’t say the cloud is gone,” Anthony said. “But for us to come out here and get this win tonight is definitely a relief from everything that’s going on.”
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