Well… it’s been a while. I haven’t written a Knicks blog in almost a month. With the All-Star break and a short week after the break, I decided to take a few weeks off, and man, have things started to fall apart. The Knicks are on the worst stretch of their season, and I am officially worried™️. I’m scared and starting to get bad thoughts about New York in my head. We keep seeing all the good news about the “potential” of returns the Knicks can get at the end of the month. That sounds good and all, but that would be the best-case scenario. Whenever it gets reported that Randle, OG, and Mitch can all return at the end of the month, I take it with a grain of salt. Mitch and Randle don’t seem close yet. I get that a lot can happen in a month, but I’m not holding my breath for the immediate return of Mitch and Randle. I need to see significant improvements in their injury news before I can get excited.
What I am excited for is the return of OG Anunoby. It’s been reported that he’s been cleared to shoot now. It seems he will be the first to return of the three injured Knick players, and the Knicks need him BADLY. In the last ten games, the Knicks have the worst defense in the NBA. A drastic change from where they were at the start of last month, as injuries have completely torn our defense to shreds.Where the Knicks are right now, they need a vast improvement in their defense, and injecting OG will be able to do that.
The last thing I wanted to touch upon from this Knicks terrible stretch is Alec Burks. Since returning to New York, he has been terrible for the Knicks. He is shooting 32% from three and has an efficiency FG percentage of 40. It’s been a lousy start for Burks as a returning player. I’m hoping he can fix it, but if he can’t before the injured players can return, I would rather have Miles McBride and his better defense as the backup point guard rather than Burks.
Weekly Grades:
Knicks: D
Jalen Brunson: A
Isaiah Hartenstein: B-
Donte DiVincenzo: B+
Josh Hart: A-
Precious Achiuwa: B
Deuce McBride: B
Jericho Sims: B-
Bojan Bogdanovic: B
Alec Burks: D
Now, let’s see what the Knicks have up next for the coming week.
The Knicks start their week on Sunday in Cleveland on ESPN. The injured Knicks get to play a prime-time game, and I’m not looking forward to this. This should be a beatdown, as the Cavs are a much better team than the Knicks right now. After that, the Knicks head home to play the Hawks on Tuesday night. With or without their key players, the Knicks can win this game. The Hawks are a fraudulent franchise, and New York has the much better point guard. Finally, the Knicks try to get their first win against the Magic on Friday as they stay in New York. Not much has changed since they played Orlando the last time, except New York will probably have Isaiah Hartenstein this time. I don’t expect the Knicks to win this game, as the Magic have shown all season long they can compete against the Knicks and might be the better team. These next few weeks will be huge for the Knicks, and it will be a “wait and see” type thing until the Knicks get healthy.
Until next time, let’s go Knicks!
SmallDog Sports 
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