The concerns bubbling around the Knicks had cooled in recent days, but Tuesday brought them right back to the surface.
And that’s despite extending their win streak to three.
Because if it were almost any other team than one of the NBA’s bottom-feeders in the Kings, they would have been buried.
Against any quality side, this wouldn’t have been good enough.
They committed 21 turnovers, allowing the Kings to score 20 points off them.
OG Anunoby had a whopping seven — including three straight turnovers to end the third quarter.
They are lucky the Kings shot a brutal 16.7 percent (5-for-30) from 3-point range. Plenty of those were open looks, though — not exactly the result of strong perimeter defense.
It meant the Knicks could survive a brutal first three quarters before outscoring the Kings by 16 in the fourth.
So the lethargic Knicks were bailed out with a 103-87 win at Madison Square Garden.
After losing 9 of 11 games, they have responded with three straight wins.
Their historic rout of the Nets, followed by a chaotic win over the 76ers in Philadelphia, provided some confidence that they put their rut behind them and were returning to the standard they had held earlier in the season.
But Tuesday’s showing certainly wasn’t convincing — quite the opposite.
The MSG broadcast repeatedly showed a puzzled Brown looking on on the bench, unhappy with what he was seeing.
It was embarrassing when the Knicks lost to the Kings in Sacramento earlier this month.
The Kings, who are now 24 games under .500, proceeded to go 1-5 before Tuesday’s rematch.
And for the majority of Tuesday, the Knicks were flirting with similar embarrassment.
It wasn’t until just over three minutes left in the game until they finally took control, when Jalen Brunson scored seven straight points to put the Knicks up 12. Brunson finished with a team-high 28 points.
DeMar DeRozan, 36, turned back the clock and recorded 34 points.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
