Knicks fall behind by 30, get blown out by Thunder

When he was introduced at Madison Square Garden before Friday night’s game began, Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein received a mixed ovation: a few boos and mostly applause. If that seemed harsh, he needed to wait only a few minutes to see how much worse it could have been.

The Knicks squad he departed in the summer had no mixed reaction from the crowd for much of this night.  In what was hoped to be a showcase for their title aspirations against the Oklahoma City Thunder,  the Knicks were booed loudly by the 19,812 in attendance as they went to the bench at the end of the first quarter and booed even louder as they went to the locker room at the half, down by 27 points.

The performance — and the reaction — didn’t get better after halftime. The closest thing to kindness from the crowd came when Tom Thibodeau inserted little-used rookie Ariel Hukporti into the game late in the third quarter. At least he wasn’t to blame for what transpired as the Knicks fell behind by 30 and were humiliated, 126-101, for their fourth loss in five games.

The boxscore  might seem to show reasonable performances by the Knicks stars as Jalen Brunson finished with 27 points and Karl-Anthony Towns had 23 points and 10 rebounds. Josh Hart seemed the only player up to playing as physically as the Thunder, finishing with 16 points and 13 rebounds. But no one was putting this game on their highlight reels.

Mikal Bridges was scoreless, missing all nine of his attempts. OG Anunoby had four points, all coming long after the game was out of reach.

The loss dropped the Knicks to 0-5 this season against the top two teams in each conference — Cleveland, Boston, Oklahoma City and Houston — and while their 25-14 record  has them in third place in the Eastern Conference, it certainly puts an asterisk on exactly what they have accomplished.

The Knicks are 13-1 against the bottom five teams in each conference and have yet to show that they can do more than clean up against the bottom-feeders and lottery hunters.

After blowing a 14-point lead a week earlier in Oklahoma City and falling apart down the stretch, Thibodeau implored his team to play for 48 minutes this time. He’d be hard-pressed to find 10 minutes in which the Knicks seemed on equal footing in this game.

“They felt like they let one get away at our place with the way the game unfolded,” Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault said before the game of last week’s contest. “It was a great game. They’re a great team. They threw the first punch. They really had us on our heels for much of that game.”

“Yeah, you’ve just got to play for 48 minutes,” Thibodeau said before tipoff Friday night. “A hard-fought game on the road. You’ve got to be strong on both sides of the ball. It went down to the wire. We’ve got to finish stronger.”

Starting, finishing and everything in between was the issue this time. The 27-point halftime hole the Knicks found themselves in was the largest regular-season halftime deficit since Thibodeau arrived as head coach and the worst home halftime deficit the team had faced in regular season or postseason under Thibodeau.

The last time the Knicks were down by 27 points at the half was Dec. 19, 2019, a game in Milwaukee that dropped them to 4-17. One more blowout loss later, coach David Fizdale was fired, a step toward the total makeover of the organization.

There are no such sweeping changes on the horizon for these Knicks, so this coach, this team and this front office are left to confront the realities of this loss.

The deficit came from a mix of a lot of things. Oklahoma City (31-6) is an elite team, a legitimate championship contender running away with the Western Conference and coming off its first loss in more than a month. The Knicks were missing the few open shots that they were getting and turning the ball over with no resistance, and the Thunder were dropping in everything that they threw at the rim.

But there were several alarming signs, starting with the effort, being outhustled and outmuscled by the Thunder on their home court. The Knicks shot 31.8% from the floor and 13.3% from three-point range in the first half and watched the Thunder shoot 61.4% from the floor and 66.7% from outside the arc. And it didn’t get any better as the game wore on, with the deficit up to 28 entering the fourth quarter as Thibodeau kept most of his starters in their regular rotation minutes, hoping for a turnaround that never came.

With 8:12 left in the third quarter, Anunoby converted a driving layup for his first points after an 0-for-5 start (he and Bridges totaled  0-for-13 shooting to that point). While shots may not fall, the duo with the deserved defensive reputation were helpless to slow the onslaught.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 39 points in 29:22 through three quarters with Bridges as the primary defender and never needed to take the court in the fourth. Isaiah Joe came off the bench to score 20 points in 10 minutes in the first half and finished with 31 points in 30:16.

The Knicks actually were at full strength with Deuce McBride returning after missing the previous five games with a sore hamstring. But nothing helped on this night.