Through 11 games, there has been one Knicks constant: Their inconsistency. 

They have not only been unable to string consecutive strong games together, but even quarters. They follow up quality wins like the Monday night victory over the Timberwolves with a no-show against the Nets. 

They played arguably the best quarter of the season in the third against the Cavaliers in an Oct. 30 loss and followed with one of their worst in the ensuing 12 minutes. They were dominant against a projected playoff team in the Hawks, building a 23-point lead in the second quarter, before falling apart the rest of the way in a Nov. 2 defeat. They vacillate between the bench being a strength and a weakness, from shooting the lights out one night and not being able to throw the ball in the ocean the next. 

“We’re trying to figure ourselves out,” said Derrick Rose, the longest-tenured veteran of the team. “When we’re playing in certain games, we’re trying to feel out the game instead of playing with a lot of urgency right away. 

“When you have a new group of guys and almost every other game different people are starting in the lineup, you’re gonna get that, where guys are playing and don’t wanna mess up the game. So, they’re playing it very safe. Until we get that consistent play of urgency, I think that we’re gonna have times like this.” 

While there are a lot of holdovers from last year, there are newcomers in significant spots, from Brunson to Isaiah Hartenstein to Cam Reddish, who rarely played after coming over in a January trade with the Hawks. Even Rose only appeared in 26 games a season ago due to multiple ankle surgeries. And while, yes, the rotations and starting lineups haven’t been as consistent as some may prefer, largely due to injuries to Mitchell Robinson and Quentin Grimes, it’s nothing other teams aren’t dealing with. The scuffling Knicks (5-6) have yet to beat a team with a winning record, failing on multiple occasions to land the type of signature victory Rose believes would significantly help team-wide confidence. 

“I’ve played on teams like that before, early on with the Bulls, where you’re not established as a team yet and you’re trying to figure out what’s gonna be your identity,” Rose said. 

For the most part, effort has not been a problem, until Wednesday night in Brooklyn. Several Knicks attributed the lopsided loss to not playing hard enough. Jalen Brunson was by far the most critical, saying the Knicks’ effort was ‘’not OK. It’s something that we need to quickly recover from.” 

Coach Tom Thibodeau called it a “low-energy” performance. After watching the film, Thibodeau felt that once the Knicks started the night shooting so poorly, it impacted them in other areas, paving the way for the Nets to rack up 38 points in the first quarter and cruise to an easy victory. 

“I think that was probably the biggest thing,” the coach said. 

Thibodeau’s biggest concern right now are minor details that are escaping his team. It could be something as simple as not blitzing a pick-and-roll hard enough or not making that extra pass. They add up. 

“That’s what we have to get locked into,” Thibodeau said. “If we take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.” 

Of course, the 27-point loss to the Nets wasn’t about little things. It was everything, from missing shots to missed defensive assignments to overall lackadaisical play. It felt like an anomaly, the one game this year the Knicks really had no shot to win. It made the performance against the Nets feel like a massive step back, getting obliterated by a team that had been in turmoil itself. 

“The games reveal exactly where you are and what you have to work on,” Thibodeau said. “Sometimes you can think, like ‘OK, we scored the ball very effectively in Minnesota, we’ll come out and do the same thing [in our next game].’ Well, you got to put the work in to get the same results.” 

So far this season, whether it’s new players getting accustomed to each other, different lineups and rotations or something else entirely, those consistent results have eluded the Knicks.