The home of the Knicks is becoming the most infamous arena in the world.
Madison Square Garden, the NBA’s most prestigious venue, has been transformed into the Knicks’ mansion of terror. Their most recent home loss was an overtime loss to the Raptors on Monday, where he lost 11-12 at the Garden this season.
Of the 20 teams competing in an NBA play-in tournament or postseason on Tuesday, the Knicks were the only club to finish below .500 at home.
“It’s frustrating. Obviously we want to win at home,” Jalen Brunson said after 26 points were wasted on Monday. It’s clearly a historic place to play, so everyone is doing their best to come here.”
This is the usual explanation. He doesn’t need a second cup of coffee for the opposing team to get up for the game in the garden. The stars don’t want to sit when New York looks on. The same reason was given last season when the Knicks went 17-24 in the Garden and missed the postseason.
But last season was a season where everything was lost. In 2022-23, the Knicks have a strong 14-8 away record and will be able to contend for home-court advantage in the first round. Since the 1976-77 merger, only seven teams have qualified for the postseason with a home loss, and he includes the 2021-22 Nets. The Nets are his 7th seed and probably need an asterisk because Kyrie Irving was banned from playing at his center Barclays. most of the season.
When the Knicks host the Wizards on Wednesday, they start the game as the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference and play into a strange historical anomaly. Since the NBA/ABA merger, no team has lost at home to finish in the top six in the conference.
“For us, I think we need to focus on the little things,” Branson said before addressing the whole issue. We have to be one percent, two percent better.”
he is right The Knicks are outscoring their opponents at home by an average of 115.5 to 112.5. Lim is friendlier in the garden and on the road he’s shooting 40.3% vs. 39.4%, but in a good enough game it didn’t make a difference if he bucketed one or two.
The Knicks’ 11 games in the garden have ended with seven points or less. The Knicks have lost eight of those games.
This includes when the Bucks, Bulls, Hawks, and Trail Blazers all lose heavily in games where the Knicks have a big or late lead. Going into Tuesday, the Knicks were the third-worst team in the NBA in the second half of a home game, with more points than 72. Only the poor Rockets and Spurs had a combined 23 wins and 3rd and 3rd quarter wins. It got even worse on his court at home in the 4th quarter.
The competition continues to be tight, and it seems to be affecting Tom Thibodeau’s rotation. Branson, Julius Randle and RJ Barrett played back-to-back for a total of 134 minutes on Monday. The match did not go well because Thibodeau relied too much on the best players.
“It was hard to tell what the foul was,” said Thibodeau after the Raptors made 41 free throws, six more than the Knicks.
Home cooking becomes stale when even the host doesn’t get his way.
The Knicks won’t have much of an opportunity to thicken their home record after facing off against the below-average Wizards. You only have one match to play against. The Cavaliers, Heat, Clippers, 76ers, Jazz, Nets (twice), Pelicans, and Celtics don’t look intimidating when they step into what many call “Mecca.”
When asked last month if he was worried about the team’s struggles at home, Thibodeau replied, “I’m worried about everything, so I’m watching everything.”
There is so much to see.