Things aren’t going well for the Knicks. They’ve lost four in a row, are 13th in the East at 22-33 and it feels like they’re caught up in drama every other day. This week, James Dolan’s treatment of Knick legend Charles Oakley started a firestorm with many, many people voicing their distaste for Dolan.
The Knicks came out and gave up 131 points to the Nuggets in regulation tonight, allowing Nikola Jokic to go off for 40 points. After the game, Knicks head coach Jeff Hornacek, apparently fed up with everything, held no punches. His quotes:
“Couldn’t guard anybody. Simple as that,” Hornacek said of a starting lineup that featured Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose and Kristaps Porzingis. “They should be embarrassed by the way they couldn’t guard anybody.”
“Look at the difference between the first group and the second. They play with effort,” Hornacek said. “They get after guys. A guy who got the ball, they get up on him. They help each other out. First group didn’t do that.”
“With the length, it should help, he should be quicker than that guy,” Hornacek said (of Porzingis). “He should be able to get up on him. He might get overpowered at some point but a lot of (Jokic’s) shots, he just lined ‘em up. Spun the ball around with the seams and just shot it in. If our guys think that’s a challenged shot, we need to redefine what that is.”
“They’re very good offensively and they’re terrible at defense,” Hornacek said of the starting lineup, which was missing Joakim Noah for a third straight game because of a hamstring strain. “(Friday night), they got zero stops if you look at their starters down the line, (the Nuggets) must have shot 75 percent against them.”
