NEW YORK _ David Fizdale has pleaded and preached to the Knicks the need for the team to play 48 minutes with intensity. And if they weren't going to, at least he was. So when the team came off the floor midway through the fourth quarter, a huge early lead evaporated and now trying to keep the wheels from falling off completely, Fizdale greeted the team as they came to the bench.
Before letting them take a seat, he animatedly screamed at them, one by one, imploring them. But no strong words or motivational speeches were enough for an overmatched Knicks team to avoid losing their fifth straight game, this one a 101-95 defeat to the 76ers at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are 4-15.
The Knicks did at least put up a fight. But it wasn't enough to get a win. With 3:16 to play and the Knicks trailing by three, Philadelphia's Ben Simmons and the Knicks' Marcus Morris got tangled up, crashing to the floor. Simmons was called for the foul and as Morris moved to get up, he kneed Simmons in the head. But the officials didn't call that, sending Morris to the line, where he made it a one-point game.
The Knicks tied it up at 87 on a drive by RJ Barrett, but that was the last highlight. As Garden fans chanted, "Defense," Joel Embiid scored in the lane with 2:33 remaining, drawing the sixth foul on Mitchell Robinson on the play. As Robinson left the court, he bumped Simmons and the two briefly had words before Robinson was ushered away.
The deficit stretched to 94-89 on a Tobias Harris drive with 1:19 left and after a timeout, Simmons swiped Frank Ntilikina's inbounds pass, breaking away for a dunk and a seven-point Sixers lead. Down four with 17 seconds left, Ntilikina penetrated and fed Wayne Ellington in the corner, but the Knicks' best shooter air-balled a 3-point attempt and a pair of 76ers free throws iced the game.
One minute into the game, 76ers coach Brett Brown was already calling time as the Knicks opened with 3-point field goals from Morris and Ntilikina. By the time the quarter was over, the Knicks were up 31-18 and Barrett had 10 points. It continued into the second quarter and by halftime, the Knicks had hit 7 for 12 beyond the arc and the Sixers were just 2 for 18.
But the Knicks had been down this road before, building a 17-point third-quarter lead in Philadelphia just nine days earlier and seeing that disappear.
Fizdale warned before the game that the ability to keep it going all night long is what has been missing.
"You've got to be able to keep complete trust and effort throughout 48 minutes," he said, pointing to the same troubles in the Knicks' most recent game, when they built an 11-point lead and saw Toronto turn it into a one-sided win. "You're talking about the defending champs, a team that has ultimate trust in each other, approaches every possession like it's the last."
Less than four minutes into the second half, the lead was down to four points as Simmons stole a Julius Randle pass and threw down a powerful breakaway dunk. By the time the third quarter was over, the Sixers had taken a 70-68 lead with James Ennis III hitting a go-ahead 3-pointer.
One strange turn for the Knicks on this night was that Kevin Knox continued to slide down the depth chart. After sitting out the second half of two of the previous four games, Knox took a complete DNP-coaches decision for the first time in his career.
