The Knicks needed to have a better attitude when it comes to facing inferior teams.
So warned Mitchell Robinson two days before his team played host Sunday to the Washington Wizards, who are not only an inferior team but an inferior team that had nine players listed as out on their injury report.
This time, his teammates listened, extending their winning streak to six games with a 145-113 victory over a Wizards team that has now lost 16 straight games.
The game was quite a contrast to the performance the Knicks put on Friday night when they barely escaped a 93-92 nailbiter against the Nets in Brooklyn. Robinson, the longest tenured Knick, made it clear that overlooking bottom-feeding teams was something the Knicks had to stop doing and stop doing soon.
“Our approach has to be better,” Robinson said. “We can’t just look at their record and say, ‘We’re going to whip their butts.’ We just have to be better altogether. Until we figure that one out, it’s going to be a long roller coaster.”
The Knicks (47-25) have compiled their six-game winning streak with six wins against sub-.500 teams. That record, however, has masked some serious concerns as the Knicks have had to rely on second-half surges in order to beat opponents they should have dominated from the get-go.
The Knicks have trailed after the first quarter in three of the six wins. Against Brooklyn the Knicks trailed by eight, against Golden State by 14 and against Utah by 15. In two others, both against last-place Indiana, the Knicks led by just four and three points after the first quarter.
All of this against teams who are eyeing the lottery and really aren’t all that concerned about winning.
So what, you say? Does it really matter as long as the Knicks are the team on top after the fourth quarter. Well, it kind of does.
This habit of slow starts is more than a bit disconcerting because while the Knicks might be able to overcome a bad start against a bad team, it’s much harder to do against good or even mediocre ones. This was clearly on display in the Knicks’ two losses before the start of the five-game streak as both the Lakers and Clippers jumped out to leads in the first quarter to set the tone for the game.
“We just have to come out better. We have to do better as a team,” said Mikal Bridges, who actually bucked that trend by scoring seven of his nine points in the first quarter of the Nets game. “It’s just mentally, I think. It’s just being mentally ready when the game starts.”
Coach Mike Brown has spent a good chunk of the season talking about how the Knicks have to get off to better starts, and he again found himself in that position after the narrow win over the Nets on Friday night.
“I thought we were real lackadaisical with the basketball,” Brown said. “We had 13 turnovers at halftime . . . 13 or 14 is what we usually have in a game. And we had 13 at halftime. And we ended the game with 22. That’s not a good ingredient to have when you’re trying to get a road win, no matter who you’re playing.
“We know we have to play better. And I believe our guys will play better.”
The Knicks certainly did that Sunday night, beating up on a team everyone else loves to dominate.
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Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
