The Knicks lost to the Clippers on Wednesday for the team’s seventh straight defeat, one that sent them to a dismal record of 3-11 on the season.
That wasn’t exactly the plan coming off of a year where New York finished with the second best record in the East, and expectations heading into the season were at minimum to finish with a top-four record in the Conference.
As the team continues to find its way, the players and coaches will continue to try to hash out the issues in hopes of coming to a workable solution. And one such meeting took place immediately following New York’s latest loss in Los Angeles.
From Arash Markazi of ESPN Los Angeles:“The easiest thing for us to do is just to crumble right now,” Carmelo Anthony said. “We are in a dark place but we have to get out of this. We just have to get out of it.”
The meeting took place in the visitors’ locker room of Staples Center following the Knicks’ 93-80 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. The Knicks have the third-worst record in the league, and a loss Friday night in Denver would mean losing eight straight for the first time since February 2010.
“We talked. Everybody talked,” Anthony said. “The players had a meeting, the coaches -- everybody had a meeting after the game. We had to talk. We’re trying to figure it out together. We have to put four quarters together. We got to do it for one another. Right now the game is not fun for nobody. We’re just not making it happen.”
The Knicks were actually in the game against the Clippers for longer than expected, but a 12-point fourth quarter ultimately doomed their chances.
New York has issues on both sides of the ball right now -- J.R. Smith has yet to come close to playing like he did a season ago when he was the league’s top sixth man, and the Knicks have struggled defensively ever since Tyson Chandler went down with a fractured right fibula injury.
There are plenty of things the Knicks need to clean up, and lengthy postgame meetings are usually a sign of some deeper-seeded problems. But at least the players and coaches are talking and working together on potential solutions, so the communication is there even if the on-court results haven’t shown themselves just yet.
