Will the Real Knicks Please Stand Up?

 

The New York Knicks continue to play basketball like a team with two personalities.

One night they look like contenders. The next, like Sunday in Los Angeles, they look like a team still searching for itself.

The Los Angeles Lakers beat them 110–97 without LeBron James, which tells you plenty. Luka Dončić scored 35 points and controlled the game, while Austin Reaves added 25. The Lakers never trailed.

The Knicks made a run late, cutting a 23-point deficit to 10 when the Lakers went cold for six minutes in the fourth. But the Knicks did what inconsistent teams do: they wasted the opportunity.

They shot 8-for-34 from three and turned the ball over eight times in the fourth quarter.

Karl-Anthony Towns did his part with 25 points and 16 rebounds. Jalen Brunson scored 24, including 10 late.

And Mikal Bridges?
Twenty-seven minutes. Zero points.

That’s the Knicks in one stat line.

They started this trip by beating Denver. Two games later they can’t make a shot in Los Angeles against a team missing its biggest star.

Championship teams have bad nights. But they usually know who they are.

Right now the Knicks don’t.

History says inconsistent teams rarely win titles. The Houston Rockets in 1995 pulled it off behind Hakeem Olajuwon. The Dallas Mavericks did it in 2011 with Dirk Nowitzki.

But those teams found themselves when it mattered.

The Knicks are still looking for the real one.