Any Given Sunday is a cliché for a reason, but no one inside MSG Wednesday night expected to see the Knicks struggle against a three-win Orlando team, let alone lose.
Especially the Knicks themselves.
"Disappointed," head coach Tom Thibodeau said of the effort. "We have to learn from it and get ready for the next one. But we're capable of doing a lot better. You have to play for 48 minutes. You can't let your guard down. Unfortunately, we beat ourselves tonight. Our turnovers hurt us, the second shot hurt us, and so we're capable for playing a lot better than we did."
"They scored 104 points, but what'd they have, 18 points off second chance and 21 points off of turnovers? Thirty-nine of your 104 points come off of that. That's a lot. It's tough," added Julius Randle. "We come in, work hard, all that, we've just got to continue to figure it out."
The Knicks were out of sync all night, and despite a late surge that gave them a late lead, Orlando roared back to hang on for a 104-98 win. Part of the issue was Randle, who was an MVP candidate last year but has, at times, regressed back into his old form this season. He was a minus-21 player on Wednesday night, with Derrick Rose (-11) the only other player even worse than minus-5.
"It's just weird out there right now. That's the best way I could describe it. It's just kind of weird and just a little bit choppy and we're just trying to figure it out," Randle said of the Knicks' offense. "I think everybody's hearts and intentions are in the right place. It's just a little weird right now. We're just trying to give everything we have and figure it out."
"(Orlando) played hard, we didn't. I have to do a better job getting them ready. That's on me," Thibodeau added. "We'll take a good, hard look at it, but it's easy to analyze because you look at it and it tells you, like we know our defense was better, but the rebounding wasn't. I mean, you give teams second and third crack at it, it's hard to win."
The Magic, meanwhile, had just two net-negative players on the night, both of whom were reserves that played less than 15 minutes each.
"Defensively, I don't understand. That's my thing. You look to the first thing I said when we started the season at the beginning of the year, I said we will be fine if we play defense," Randle said. "I said it from Day One of training camp and that's really what it is."
Some of that could be mitigated by the old saying "the best defense is a good offense," but again, the Knicks just haven't been able to find that consistency.
"It doesn't feel like the flow and the chemistry is there yet. Sometimes it'll be intended, trying to let others do their thing, but sometimes we see things happening in the game and you get overaggressive," Randle said. "Everybody's heart and intentions are in the right place, but you get overaggressive trying to make things happen out there."
"I always say when you don't meet your goals or you're disappointed, you start with yourself and you work your way out," Thibodeau added. "My job is to have them ready, and so I didn't think we played as well as we were capable of playing. That falls on me, so I've got to make sure that we have that edge and that we're ready to go, so I'll start there."
That all said, Randle has one message for Knicks fans: don't jump off the ship just yet.
"We've just got to continue to figure it out. It's a long season," he said. "We're just 15 games in, I know it feels like the end of the world here in New York, but it's 15 games in."
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
Follow WFAN on Social Media
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
