As the Knicks made a charge in the fourth quarter, a backcourt to which they have devoted hundreds of millions of dollars watched from the bench.
RJ Barrett and Jalen Brunson were benched for the entire period and much of the third quarter in Sunday’s embarrassing 145-135 loss to the Thunder at the Garden.
The Knicks, who allowed their most points in a game in 16 years, were gashed from the outside in. A dominant Shai Gilgeous-Alexander knifed his way through defenders en route to 37 points.
Barrett hung best with the long, tall, speedy wing, but too often was on his heels. Just before the first half ended, Gilgeous-Alexander juked his way to the elbow and faked Barrett into the air. SGA leaned in and got off his jumper as Barrett came down on him for the and-one.
Barrett picked up his fourth foul on Gilgeous-Alexander two minutes and two seconds into the third quarter, was subbed out and never returned.
RJ Barrett guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander during the Knicks’ loss to the Thunder. Noah K. Murray-NY Post“I think it’s time [to sit] when you’re fouling enough,” said Barrett, who added everyone has to play harder, but he accepted blame. “It falls on me for sure because I was guarding Shai, and he got me into some foul trouble. And that’s not good. I got to do a better job of not fouling.”
He was not alone. The Thunder shot 62.5 percent from the field and 54.8 percent from deep, getting huge games from shooting guard Josh Giddey (a triple-double with 24 points) and small forward Lu Dort (24 points).
As the Knicks’ starters had no answers and Giddey did some of everything, Brunson was replaced by Derrick Rose with 4:46 left in the third quarter and also never reentered.
“I mean, I wouldn’t have played myself either, the way I was playing defensively,” said Brunson, who finished with 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
The Knicks, who were down by as many as 19 points, outscored the Thunder by six in the fourth quarter without their starting backcourt. Immanuel Quickley (24 points) and Cam Reddish (26 points) sparked the offense and, in the late going, were flanked by Julius Randle, Evan Fournier and Jericho Sims.
Jalen Brunson dribbles during the second half. Noah K. Murray-NY Post
Tom Thibodeau benched Jalen Brunson and RJ Barrett for the fourth quarter. Noah K. Murray-NY Post“We just got behind by so much,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said of Barrett’s benching. “We were looking for life, and that group that was in there gave us a little bit of a spark, and so that’s what we went with.”
The Knicks’ past three games have entailed a horrid, 27-point loss to the Nets, an unimpressive, narrow victory over the lowly Pistons and a defensive no-show to the Thunder.
It only will get more difficult from here for Tom Thibodeau’s struggling team.
Tuesday begins a five-games-in-seven-days trip that starts in Utah and swings to Denver on a back-to-back, before a matchup in San Francisco against the defending-champion Warriors. The Knicks complete the voyage with another back-to-back, against the excellent Suns and the same Thunder team that just sprinted by the Knicks.
Evan Fournier called playing the Jazz and Nuggets “probably the toughest back-to-back in the league” because of the altitude and conditions in traveling.
“I know what I’m talking about because I was in Denver for two years, and teams coming in, we just looked at them like, ‘Ah, we got them,’ ” Fournier said after the 145-135 loss to Oklahoma City at the Garden. “So, that’s going to be a really interesting game for us, I think, in terms of how we approach it.”
The Knicks are 2-4 on the road. They have shown flashes of quality basketball — including a franchise-best 48-point first quarter Sunday — but wherever they have played, complete games have proven elusive.
They have alternated wins and losses in seven games straight.
“We’ve just got to consistently put it together,” Julius Randle said after scoring 25 points on 7-for-14 shooting on Sunday. “There’s nothing like a long road trip of us being around and bonding with each other, really getting to spend time with each other. So it will be a great time for us to find that consistency for sure.”
Quentin Grimes played 7:57 in his third game back from his foot injury. The second-year guard went 0-for-2 and was another defender who struggled to keep up with Gilgeous-Alexander.
Before the game, Thibodeau continued to call Grimes “situational,” only available in short bursts because he has missed so much time since training camp with a sore left foot.
Mitchell Robinson, who missed his fifth straight game with a knee sprain, has begun on-court work, Thiobdeau said.
Thibodeau called the center “day to day,” but said Robinson has not begun contact drills yet.
