The New York Knicks conclude the regular season on Sunday at the Brooklyn Nets already having clinched the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 seed.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, however,wants to see a more complete effort from his team ahead of the playoffs.
New York (50-31) comes into Sunday’s contest after squandering a 23-point lead and dropping a 108-102 decision to Cleveland.
“We got to be honest with ourselves, look at what we did wrong,” Thibodeau told reporters after the loss. “We got to get it fixed, and we got to get it fixed fast.”
The Knicks are headed to their third consecutive postseason appearance, the organization’s first such run since 2011-13. They are pursuing their first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2000 and first trip to the NBA Finals since the lockout-shortened 1999 campaign.
New York is set to face the sixth-seeded Detroit Pistons, who will begin the playoffs having won at least 30 more games than a season ago.
Detroit took three in a row from New York in the four-game regular-season series. Similarly, the Knicks carry a three-game losing skid into Sunday to face Brooklyn (26-55).
“We’re heading down the stretch,” Thibodeau said. “We’ve got to have rhythm going into the playoffs, so this has to be changed quickly.”
New York has undergone some roster flux, with Karl-Anthony Towns missing Friday’s game with a knee injury. Jalen Brunson returned to the lineup from a lengthy absence due to an ankle injury last Sunday and produced 27-point games against Boston and Cleveland.
Both were losses, however, bookending the Knicks’ third defeat this season to Detroit, 115-106 on Thursday.
After seeing three consecutive teams bound for the playoffs, New York shifts gears for a Nets team that is wrapping up the organization’s second consecutive losing campaign after a run of five straight postseason appearances.
The Nets faced a litany of injury absences after the All-Star break, resulting in losing skids of seven and six games. They have dropped four of the last five heading into Sunday after a 117-91 blowout loss on Friday at Minnesota.
All five Brooklyn starters scored in double-figures in the loss, including Drew Timme with an 11-point, 10-rebound double-double. The former Gonzaga star has three double-doubles and scored in double figures six times in eight games since joining the Nets roster from the G League on March 28.
“Everybody that’s out there in the fourth quarter, we’re all out there trying to prove we belong,” Timme said to the New York Post.
With Cameron Johnson, Nic Claxton, Noah Clowney, D’Angelo Russell and Ziaire Williams all among the recent Brooklyn scratches, various Nets have seen opportunities to showcase themselves late in the season.
Among them is Reece Beekman, who has games of 14 and 11 points vs. Toronto and Minnesota, respectively, and a 10-assist performance in Brooklyn’s last win against New Orleans.
Princeton alum Tosan Evbuomwan is another Net looking to capitalize on playing time, delivering four consecutive double-figure-scoring games before finishing with seven off the bench on Friday.
–Field Level Media
