Sloppy Knicks drop third straight, fall 103-94 to Magic without Karl-Anthony Towns

[ad_1]

A sloppy performance on both ends of the floor translated to a third straight loss for the Knicks as the Orlando Magic took down a scrappy 103-94 win Monday night at Madison Square Garden.

“They played a good game and we played a low-energy game, and we fell short.” said head coach Tom Thibodeau, before adding, “I don’t want to say a lack of effort because guys were trying, but we played low-energy and we couldn’t get anything going.

“… We gotta make it go our way and sometimes you just gotta dig down and find a way to win the game and we fell short in that area today.”

New York, playing without Karl-Anthony Towns, struggled to generate easy offense after the first quarter (going just 4-for-22 from behind the arc) and couldn’t translate missed Orlando shots into fastbreak points (with just eight all night). Orlando, one of the better teams at three-point defense, held the Knicks to just six attempts in the second half, attempting 13 fewer than their average.

It was a tough night for Jalen Brunson as he went 8-for-21 from the floor for 24 points and four assists for a minus-3 before he fouled out in the game’s final moments.

Mikal Bridges started strong and closed well, scoring 24 (10-for-20) with five rebounds and two assists, but he went 1-for-7 from deep and was a minus-1 as the Knicks fell to 24-13 on the season. The Magic, playing without their four leading scorers, improved to 22-16.

Miles McBride missed his fourth straight game and New York’s three-man bench combined to score 18 points on 7-for-16 shooting in his absence. Orlando added 50 from its bench.

“When you’re shorthanded you gotta play hard, your margin of error is tight,” Thibodeau said.

Here are the takeaways…

– The Knicks’ offense – even with the less offensively adept Jericho Sims in at center for Towns – didn’t have to expend much effort to find good looks in the early goings against the Magic with Bridges scoring four quick points and owning a seven-point edge less than halfway into the first.

Bridges showed his assertiveness on the offensive end, scoring nine points on 4-for-6 shooting with three rebounds. Josh Hart added seven…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/sloppy-knicks-drop-third-straight-030546728.html

Author : SNY

Publish date : 2025-01-07 03:05:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.