SALT LAKE CITY — After a troubling performance Sunday at home the Knicks flew immediately to Utah and Monday after a practice session, Julius Randle called for a players-only dinner, providing an opportunity for players to talk through their problems and try to hold things together.
So they gathered without coaches or front office personnel, spending time together and trying to salvage a season in danger of heading off the rails. They also readied for an arduous five-game road trip. Good in theory, but Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who has absorbed much of the blame for the team’s struggles, shrugged at the notion of changing their fortunes at the dinner table.
“To me I go more by the actions,” Thibodeau said before the Knicks took on the Jazz. “I want to see it in practice. That’s where you get it done.”
And they did get it done when it counted, the effort all night an upgrade over some of the lackluster efforts of late, and in the fourth quarter the Knicks took over, handing Utah its first home loss with a much-needed 118-111 win at Vivint Arena.
The Knicks trailed 87-83 early in the fourth quarter, but ran off a 16-2 burst to build a 10-point advantage with Immanuel Quickley providing a spark off the bench — including back-to-back three-point field goals and contributing 13 points. The Knicks kept building, stretching the lead to as many as 14 points.
It wasn’t easy in the end, the Jazz cutting the lead from 14 to six in a span of less than three minutes. But after Utah’s defense forced a 24-second violation Malik Beasley misfired on a three and Cam Reddish (19 points) hit a pair from the line with 1:53 to play for a 113-105 advantage. In the end Jalen Brunson managed to hold them together, finishing with 25 points and eight assists.
“[We’ve] got to lock it in,” said RJ Barrett before the game. “It was good, good to have a team dinner like that. Try to figure this out best as we can. We all care. Trying to get this going on the right track.
“I’ve seen a team like Boston who I think we had a better record than for a while [last season] and they wound up in the Finals. So a lot of things can happen. That’s why it’s 82 games.”
Barrett said that Randle had called the meeting and insisted it was a good idea. Since a 3-1 start to the season, the Knicks have experienced a number of disconcerting losses — blowing a 23-point lead at home to Atlanta, setting a franchise-record for first quarter points Sunday against Oklahoma City and watching the young team come back and pile 145 points against them, one-sided defensive failings against Boston and Brooklyn, too often leaving the arena complaining of a lack of effort.
Thibodeau cut the rotation down to nine players on this night, leaving Evan Fournier and Quentin Grimes out and relying on minutes and production from a shortened bench — putting the message he has preached, that everyone has to sacrifice something, a message that the players reinforced to each other at the dinner.
“Just about how we got to step up, knowing our role, and basically lock into everything that coach is telling us,” Obi Toppin said. “It's a team bonding thing. I just felt like [Sunday] was mostly energy. We didn't come in ready to play and how you start is how you're going to finish. We want to start off good and play 48 minutes the exact same way. We're going to approach every game the same, got to bring energy from now and just play good.”
Thibodeau has absorbed much of the blame — no different from when voices in the front office were pushing for him to be fired last season at the trade deadline. But players spoke out in defense of him, pointing to his reputation as a defensive coach — which is a lot better than the reputation of many of the players on that end. It’s hard to imagine any coach coaxing stellar defense out of this group, particularly since Mitchell Robinson has been sidelined for the last five games heading into this trip with a sprained right knee and Quentin Grimes, expected to serve as a defensive stopper on the perimeter, has been limited by his own injury troubles.
“His body of work speaks for itself. He knows what he’s doing,” Barrett said of the criticism directed toward Thibodeau. “I didn’t even know he was [being blamed]. I don’t know. That’s what you do. You win a game, we’re superheroes. You lose, everything sucks. Really just got to take the good with the bad.”
“We have a defensive coach, great defensive coach,” Toppin said. “He's going to make sure we get back on track and all of us have to be held accountable. [The] dinner last night with the players we talked about it. I felt like that helped us out a lot.”
“There’s inconsistency,” Thibodeau said. “I look at, we’ve had some really good games that we fought to the end and we didn’t close it out. You’ve got to focus in on the things you need to do each and every day. There’s no magic to this, no shortcuts to it. It’s about what you put into each day. So that’s where your focus lies. Each game tells you exactly where you are.”
“Just be locked in,” Barrett said. “Be locked in and be together, both sides of the basketball. Like I’ve been saying, when we’ve done that we’ve played extremely well.”
