Two teams hoping travel fatigue is more of a factor for the opponent than themselves will meet at Madison Square Garden when the Golden State Warriors visit the New York Knicks on Tuesday night.
The game matches clubs that have made the most of rough travel schedules of late. The Warriors will be playing on the road for the 11th time in their past 13 games, while the Knicks find themselves in a different arena from the previous game for the seventh consecutive time.
Golden State also will be dealing with a back-to-back, although it walked away from Monday’s 119-101 win at Charlotte relatively unscathed, with no player having been pushed for longer than 32 minutes.
The victory was the Warriors’ second in three contests on its current five-game trip and allowed them to stick their nose in front of the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks in a five-team battle for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot in the West.
“Fantastic, but obviously everybody’s bunched together,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said about moving solo into the sixth spot. “We can’t take too much time to celebrate. We’ve got another game (Tuesday). We could very easily find ourselves in ninth (after the New York game). We’ve just got to keep going.”
The Warriors and Knicks will be meeting for the first time this season. They will duel again in San Francisco on March 15 as part of Golden State’s seven-game homestand.
The Knicks will be seeing Jimmy Butler with the Warriors for the first time. Returning from back spasms that kept him out of Saturday’s 126-119 loss at Philadelphia, Butler contributed 13 points, three rebounds, four assists and a steal against the Hornets in 31 minutes.
The Warriors are 8-2 since acquiring Butler from the Miami Heat last month. They are 8-1 in games in which the six-time All-Star has played.
The last time Butler performed in New York, he had 28 points for the Heat in a loss last January.
The Knicks experienced the post-Butler Heat on Sunday and took advantage to record a 116-112 overtime win on the road. The victory capped an unbeaten two-game trip that began with a 114-113 win at Memphis.
After a quick stopover at home, New York will head west to begin a five-game trip against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday.
As the Knicks, who have won 13 of their past 17, attempt to close ground on the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the East, they do so with an unsteady lineup. Coach Tom Thibodeau opted for Miles McBride down the stretch over Mikal Bridges on Sunday in Miami.
It’s all about team success over individual achievements, the veteran coach insisted.
“That’s what you love about the team: Whoever has got it going, we’re going to ride those guys a little bit more,” he said. “The most important thing is the team winning. Mikal is fully engaged in the team. He does a lot of the dirty work for us, and it’s much appreciated.”
Bridges finished with just five points in the game, while McBride did a defensive number on Miami’s Tyler Herro, harassing him into two late misses in a game the Heat led into the final three minutes.
–Field Level Media
