FINALLY.

The Knicks got a much needed win after the most devastating of losses.

Good morning! I had almost forgotten what it was like to write one of these newsletters following a Knicks win, but thankfully, it ended up being just like riding a bike. New York split the weekend but ended on a high note, which we’ll get into more below. As always, if you’re not a full subscriber and want to become one, you know what to do:

Weekend Recap

Knicks 116, Clippers 93

After blowing leads of 14, 16, 3, 10, 28, 11 and 23 points in their last seven games, all losses, the Knicks came into LA to face a Clipper team that had won five straight and has specialized in massive comebacks all season long. After New York went up by 26 points in the third quarter, collective sphincters everywhere tightened. How would Armageddon transpire tonight?

Sure enough, that big lead evaporated to 12 in less than six minutes with the same maddening tendencies we’ve come to expect, all from the usual culprits. That’s where the margin stood entering another fourth quarter, but instead of singing the same sorry song, the Knicks finally changed their tune. Behind a lineup with a median age of just under 22 years old - the same lineup that went on a 16-0 run in the second quarter to initially turn this game in New York’s favor - the Knicks scored the first 10 points of the fourth, prompting Ty Lue to empty his bench, and the game was all but over.

Much more on the W below, but unfortunately, there was another game this weekend that needs recapping…

Knicks 114, Suns 115

We’ve been wondering where rock bottom was for a few weeks now, and before the Knicks got their much needed win in Los Angeles, they found it:

In a back and forth game that was defined by Julius Randle getting ejected with the Knicks leading by a dozen late in the second quarter, New York found themselves tied with three minutes to go in the fourth. They immediately grabbed a five-point lead back and could have closed it out, but a few missed free throws by RJ Barrett and Alec Burks gave Phoenix hope, and Cam Johnson scored the final three of his career high 38, including 21 in the fourth, on a banker at the buzzer to win it.

It was, in many ways, the most heartbreaking defeat in a stretch of 17 losses in 20 games that contained plenty of grief. Nearly a minute after the final buzzer, ESPN’s cameras caught Alec Burks and Immanuel Quickley (who you can see put his head in his hands when the shot went down in the clip above) still despondent, unmoving amidst the celebration.

It was a fitting image for the way the season has gone, but one with a silver lining, even if it is slight. This group of players - some of them, at least - still cares far more about winning games than they probably have any right to. That’s the culture shift we were all so happy about last season, and through all the muck, noise and nonsense, it seems to have remained.

Which is more than we can say about a lot of other lost seasons in the past.

The Kids, the Kids, the Kids

What more do we need to see at this point?

After the Knicks had putzed away more than half of their 26-point lead in the third quarter last night in Los Angeles, Tom Thibodeau started the fourth with the same lineup that went on a 16-0 run in the second: RJ Barrett, plus subs Immanuel Quickley, Deuce McBride, Jericho Sims and Cam Reddish, who played the backup four over the weekend with Obi Toppin out due to a strained hamstring. Before play even started, Barrett gathered his troops in a huddle and seemed to lay out a plan of attack:

RJ Barrett is 21 years old. Asking him to take the leadership reigns of this team, in this market, that has gone through this sort of season from hell, is anything but fair. But in the trial by fire that is being a professional athlete in New York, RJ continues to show that he may be exactly what this franchise has been waiting for.

On their first defensive possession of the quarter, you could tell that the message got through loud and clear:

If ever there was a night, and really a weekend, that symbolized a changing of the guard for the Knicks, it was this one. In LA, as my colleague Ben Ritholtz pointed out, this RJ + Backups unit played nearly 10 minutes against the Clippers before Los Angeles scored a single point against them. Julius Randle, meanwhile, played 29 minutes in this game and was somehow a minus-2 in a blowout win. There was a palpable difference in energy when he was off the floor.

In Phoenix, the game turned when Evan Fournier checked in for Cam Reddish with 6:20 to go and the Knicks up 100-93. By the time Thibs went back to Reddish with 1:18 to go after two bad Fournier missed and some embarrassing defense to match, it was 110-108. Throw in the Randle ejection - a thoughtless, selfish moment in a game his team needed him and in which, unlike every other game since the break, he was actually shooting well - and it’s not hard to see where that game was lost.

As a few people have pointed out recently, Julius Randle and Evan Fournier have played more minutes together - 1715 in total - than any two-man combination in basketball. The Knicks have a negative 3.4 net rating in that time, while they sport a positive 10.3 rating when both players are on the bench, according to Cleaning the Glass.

We can quibble about who is most at fault for this situation - Thibs for pairing them so often, the front office for thinking they (plus Kemba) were a good fit, or the players themselves for stinking up the joint. Others aren’t without blame either, including guys like RJ and Mitch who have been killing it lately but hurt the team at other points this season.

What is undeniable now though is that with 18 games remaining, we have seen more than enough. The kids got the job done last night, and have earned a chance to continue to be positive difference makers moving forward over the last 18 games.

Exchange of the Weekend

The Berman/Mitch Odd Couple routine is a 10 out of 10 NBA comedy routine.

KNICKS ON MSG @KnicksMSGN

On tonight's edition of @23savage____ postgame interviews 😂

Re-sign him, if for no other reason than so we can have more of this.

🐶 Dog House 🏚

Last night was Julius Randle’s fourth game this season in which he took at least 14 shots while shooting 25 percent or lower and scoring fewer than 14 points. This ties him with Jalen Green and Gary Trent Jr for the second most such games in the NBA behind Cole Anthony, who has five.

And now for some real fun:

• Orlando (who is tied for a league-low 16 wins) with Cole Anthony on the court: negative 4.6 net rating

• New York with Julius Randle on the court: negative 5.5 net rating

• Orlando with Cole Anthony off the court: negative 11.1 net rating

• New York with Julius Randle off the court: positive 7.0 net rating

This positive 7.0 net rating, achieved over nearly 900 minutes, would be second in the NBA over a full season, trailing only the 51-13 Phoenix Suns.

And the boneheaded ejection was still the worst part of his weekend.

💫 Stars of the Weekend 💫

⭐️ Cam Reddish: I’m doing what many fans hope will happen in real life and stealing Alec Burks’ spot here.

Burks was awesome all weekend, scoring 31 points on 19 shots while filling up the rest of the box score like he always does. It’s unfortunate that his current role has painted him in such a negative light, because of all the parties to blame for this season, he’s not one of them. When properly deployed, he’s still an asset to this team.

But Reddish stole this honor away in the fourth quarter late last night and into early this morning, scoring eight of New York’s first 10 points of the period, including this pretty up and under that (say it with me now) you just can’t teach.

Reddish also had some not great moments, but the good is starting to outweigh the bad. More importantly, we’re starting to get a glimpse of that ceiling of his, not only with finishes like this (and there were a few goodies this weekend) but with solid defense that fits in well with New York’s energetic backup bunch. 17 points on seven shots last night counts as his best and most efficient game in a Knick uniform.

⭐️ ⭐️ Immanuel Quickley: Has a real argument for the top spot, especially since he was more consistent in his minutes over the weekend than Mitch was in his, but I couldn’t overlook the historical significance of Robinson’s accomplishment, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Still, a worthy two-star weekend from IQ, who played 55 total minutes in the two games and combined for 34 points on 24 shots to go with 18 (!) rebounds and eight dimes to just one turnover. As should be a delight to every Knicks fan, he has snapped out of whatever funk he was in and is averaging 15.2 points on 51.7 percent overall and 46.7 percent from deep over his last six games. He is playing with pace, confidence, and aggressiveness at both ends of the court.

Some fans have lamented the fact that Deuce McBride - in the rotation essentially as a replacement for the injured Obi Toppin over the last two games - is being used much like Toppin on offense, being asked to wait in the corner while Quickley and RJ run the backup unit.

I respectfully think this is much ado about nothing. While it’s fair to wonder whether more McBride has to offer, we know how easily Quick can change a game. His maturation into more of a point guard has been a bumpier ride than anyone expected, but we may be seeing the fruits of that labor beginning to pay off.

IQ will never be a conventional point man, and it’s possible that his attempt to do so is what put him in such a funk to begin with, but he’s now finding a nice balance between calling his own number and running the show. Continuing to improve as this sort of player will pay incredible dividends long term, as we’ve seen over these last six games.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Mitchell Robinson: Quite the weekend for Mitch, who followed up an 8-for-8 shooting, 17-point, 15-rebound, 4-steal, 3-block game against the Suns with 12 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and one steal in LA.

Considering there are over 1200 games played every season and there have been close to 75 full seasons played since the NBA kicked things off, it’s always cool when you see someone do something that has never been done before. That’s what happened on Friday night (and part of Saturday morning), when Mitchell Robinson became the first player ever to record a perfect shooting, 15-point, 15-rebound game with multiple steals and blocks. His seven total steals/blocks also top every other perfect 15 & 15 game, with Dikembe Mutombo (six blocks, no steals in 1999) and Samaki Walker (five blocks, one steal) tying for second.

(I should note that according to Basketball Reference, 18 perfect shooting 15 & 15 games happened before the NBA started recording blocks and steals, including an astounding thirteen by Wilt Chamberlain. If I was a betting man, I’d wager that at least one of these had a few blocks and steals as well.)

Of Robinson’s eight makes, seven came either off of assists or missed shots from RJ Barrett. There’s only so much silver lining you can apply to RJ’s 6-for-26 shooting night, but his ability to funnel the ball into Robinson one way or another - like he does in the play above, putting it where only Mitch’s outstretched arm can grab it - is the best offense New York has going right now. Over New York’s first five games after the break, RJ has dimed up Mitch seven times, while the rest of the Knicks combined have gotten just three assists off Robinson makes.

Of Mitch’s nine offensive rebounds on Friday (including five off of Barrett misses), none were more important than his last, when he cleaned up an RJ drive with 16 seconds left to put New York up by one. A few seconds later, he had the block that should have iced the game:

Cameron Payne had hit a few of these high off the glass throughout the evening, but thanks to Robinson’s closing speed, he got a fingertip on this one after staying in perfect position just in case Payne decided to put it up from behind the arc.

Of all the highlights from Phoenix though, this is the one that stood out the most to me:

After Julius Randle (for reasons known only to him) bypasses both a lob to Mitch and a kick to RJ in the corner in favor of a much harder pass to Alec Burks above the break, the ball - shockingly - gets stolen. The moment it does, Robinson goes into a full sprint to get back on D. Then, after he uses his 7'4" wingspan to corral the pass, he nimbly dribbles between his legs as he’s coming down from his jump before flinging a perfectly placed one-hander to the waiting arms of Barrett.

If ever there was a play and a game that proved Mitchell Robinson has it in him to be a $20 million a year player, this was it. There is very little this man can’t physically do on a basketball court. He also isn’t perfect. His inability to simply execute a short roll will always frustrate, as will the stuff he occasionally posts on social media after games. Every fall (and there are still a lot of them) leaves you holding your breath. All of that, plus the inconsistency (how much of Friday’s performance was owed to him playing an acknowledged longtime rival, Deandre Ayton?) is why the Knicks are probably wise to continue approaching a long term extension with caution. The emergence of Jericho Sims (who was awesome last night) as a serviceable Robinson-lite backup option only further muddies the waters.

But boy, oh boy, do games like Friday make you wonder if they won’t regret letting Mitch get away should such a scenario come to pass. Hopefully the two sides can agree to a number that makes everyone happy, and we get to continue to enjoy more NBA firsts from Robinson for a long time to come.

🏀

That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his new hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter