Knicks players loaded down with minutes and might be feeling the weight

CHICAGO — When the game was over Friday night in Oklahoma City, a double-digit lead wiped away as the Knicks fell apart in the final minutes. It is natural to wonder if the Knicks were just exhausted.

All five starters had logged over 40 minutes. The first time a Knicks starting five had done that in a game since 2013. The Thunder bench had outscored the Knicks reserves 44-5 and if the Knicks looked gassed at the end, well, they were.

“I played over 40?” Karl-Anthony Towns said afterward. “It felt like it.”

While Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau has absorbed criticism and questions over the years for piling up minutes on his starters, it’s an argument without merit. It comes mostly from those who don’t see the inner workings of how he’s adapted to the game and the schedule.

The casual look at the numbers are alarming — not just the 40-minutes for every starter Friday on the front end of a back-to-back set, but the Knicks entered Saturday with four players in the top six in total minutes played this season. Mikal Bridges is first, OG Anunoby is third, Josh Hart is fourth and Jalen Brunson is sixth. Only Towns sits outside the top 10, ranking 16th in the NBA in total minutes played.

But the Knicks rarely practice and as the season wears on they even drop the lighter work of the morning shootarounds. They have opted for film and walk-throughs in a hotel ballroom. So adding a few more minutes in a game is countered by the rest days which might not have existed a few decades ago.

And the Knicks are limited in their options. Deuce McBride was sidelined Friday, Mitchell Robinson remains out of action this season and it was a night where Cam Payne didn’t match up well against the taller, longer Thunder guards.

“You’ve got to read the game,” Thibodeau said Friday night. “Obviously we had an eight-point lead going into the fourth. You know the intensity of the fourth quarter is different. So we’ve got to be ready for that. We fell short tonight, but our bench is capable, more than capable. And our starters are more than capable. So we win together, lose together. We’ve got to refocus, get ready for tomorrow night.”

The Knicks tried to buy a little breather for Brunson at the start of the fourth quarter, but that quickly changed as the lead disappeared in less than two minutes. A timeout and Brunson was back on the floor. But there were no complaints afterward.

“At the end of the day it don’t matter,” Hart said. “Fourth quarter you have to go out there and win the game. At that point it’s just competitiveness and adrenaline pushing you through, so I’ve always said I want to be out there as much as I can. At that point we’ve got to make sure we execute.”

Towns agreed, insisting that this is what he and his teammates train for, not just now, but all year long.

“It’s all preseason diet, preseason working, your workouts, your lifting and the will to win,” Towns said. “I’d lie if I said I wasn’t exhausted. I think the film shows it. But I was willing to do whatever it takes to get the win. I just wanted to put myself in a position to help my teammates win and continue to keep winning. Unfortunately we didn’t get the job done tonight. It hurts, it stings. That’s the thing about NBA basketball, the games come every day. Got to refocus, get in line and get ready for Chicago.”

And it showed as the Knicks took the floor Saturday with not one of the starters getting a night off in Chicago, Not Brunson, who’d been listed as questionable before playing 40 minutes Friday, nor Anunoby, who’d taken an hard fall. As the ball tipped off the players played with no complaints.

Notes & quotes: McBride, who has been nursing a sore hamstring since tweaking it Wednesday against Utah warmed up on the floor Saturday after not taking the floor at all Friday. But after going through pregame work he was ruled out.