NEW YORK — Last season, Julius Randle reveled in the adoration from the Madison Square Garden crowd once fans were allowed in, chants of “MVP” showering down on him as a reward for a job well done.
As he was introduced Wednesday night before the game began it was a chorus of boos that greeted him from the home crowd. This season as Randle has gone from an outlier second-team All-NBA player to a struggling and frustrated shell of that player, the response has been far different from the home crowd.
Randle turned the reaction to cheers early in the game, hitting his first three shots and then late in the game earning more applause with a no-look feed to RJ Barrett for a dunk and then a three-point play to keep the team in contention. On this night he gave them what they wanted for much of the night — hard-nosed play, big shots. But he couldn’t give them enough for a win at the Knicks fell to the Charlotte Hornets, 125-114.
