New York-The image of the Knicks playoffs focused on Friday, with the club ensuring seed number 3 of the East and a confrontation of the first round with the Panistons of the sixth sow of Detroit.
But because of the good that it felt clear about the path of the playoffs, it was still a frustrating night for New York, which blew a great advantage of 23 points in the Madison Square Garden to lose against the Cavaliers of the first place 108-102. The defeat marked a third consecutive defeat for the Knicks, drawing its longest skate of the season in the worst possible time.
“We have to fix it, and we have to fix it quickly,” said coach Tom Thibodeau severely after the game. “[We need to fix] all. We have to play for 48 minutes on both sides of the ball. “
The Knicks Star, Karl-Anthony Towns, was lost Friday’s inclination, but that was not an excuse since Cleveland was without the star Donovan Mitchell, the candidate of the sixth man of the year Ty Jerome and the wing of the reserve of ‘Andre Hunter. New York led 48-25 three minutes in the second period before the CAVs gradually turned off and advanced with little less than six remaining minutes in the game.
The All-Star Darius Garland, who shot 6 of 6 by 13 points alone in the room, helped Cleveland to overcome New York 30-16 in that last quarter to get the victory.
The return of the Cavs took the Knicks to a 0-10 concern in the season against the three clubs of 60 victories of the League: Cleveland, Oklahoma City and Boston.
This week was particularly difficult, with losses for the Pistons, the Celtics and the CAVs, potentially the three teams that would need to win in the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the conference ends to reach the round of the League championship.
Unlike Thrashings, New York (50-31) took from Cleveland (64-17) and Boston at the beginning of the season, this week’s defeats were competitive. But somehow, they could have been even more frustrating.
The Knicks enjoyed two -digit margins against the Celtics, Pistons and Cavs, leading those clubs for 25, 27 and 38 minutes, respectively. But they still lost.
“Not even being in full strength, we were able to win each of those games,” said Wing Josh Hart. Recognized the obvious, saying that the Knicks are not “playing [anywhere] Near our best basketball “as the regular season comes to an end. But he also said that he trusts that New York can straighten things during the week outside the club he will get before the playoffs.
In the costume after Friday’s defeat, the Knicks sent questions about the Pistons, who beat New York three times this season, offering praise for the massive change campaign of his first round opponent. But they also chose to go into details this soon, saying that they were much more worried at this time because they straightened their own problems and simply defeat Brooklyn at the end of the regular season.
“We can talk about [Detroit] Once we exceed 82 games, “Captain Jalen Brunscan said, who had 27 points on Friday and added that he continues to be increasingly comfortable since his absence of one -month ankle injuries.
Thibodeau did not shake his hand on whether he will play all his headlines against the Nets on Sunday in a game that will not make sense in the classification. But he made it clear that he sees value returning to the track in that contest.
“We need to enter a rhythm for playoffs, and we need to have that urgency,” he said.
