After losing their 3rd straight game on Saturday night, Julius Randle gave his honest opinions on the Knicks’ recent slump.
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Until last season, over the past few years, the New York Knicks have been a lottery team. The team would fail to advance to the postseason, finishing last in their conference twice between 2014 and 2019, and were one of the worst-performing teams in the league. However, last year, behind the leadership of Julius Randle, the Knicks finished the season with the 4th best record in the East, advancing to the playoffs for the first time since the 2012-2013 season.
Entering this campaign, the Knicks were one of the stronger teams in the East. After going 8-3 in the first 11 games, NYK somewhat lost its momentum and has now lost 9 out of the last 12 games.
Recently, Tom Thibodeau’s boys suffered a 14-point loss against a shorthanded Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr.-less Denver Nuggets team. And during the postgame interview, Randle said:
“I have to be better. Everybody has to be better. I’ll take responsibility for the team. I’ll take responsibility for myself. That doesn’t bother me. At the end of the day, I just wanna win. I think everybody … well, I know everybody in that locker room wants to win, too.”
“We gotta look ourselves in the mirror and decide what we want the season to be. I know what I want it to be. I know what the guys want it to be. But we have to commit to it, and that’s just really what it is.”
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“We have to win our games with our defense”: Julius Randle
The Knicks were one of the best defensive teams early in the season. However, with a 110 defensive rating, the squad is the 9th worst defensive side in the league. Julius emphasized the importance of defense to his team.
“We’re going to win games with our defense. That’s who we are. We’re not the superstars, three, four superstars on the team like Brooklyn or all these other teams. We’re a team. How we were last year, how we have to be this year as well, we have to win games with our defense.”
“I just think we gotta understand that in order to win games we gotta play really hard, extremely hard. We gotta have game plan discipline, and we gotta win games on defense. If our offense is great, great. That’s just a bonus. But who we are as a team, how we built this team and this culture is just fighting defensively, the togetherness, just the effort, the hustle plays. I feel like that’s what the city of New York loves. That’s what the fans love — when they know we’re out there giving it our all.”
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Currently, the Knicks have fallen down to the 11th spot in the East with an 11-12 record. They are only 2 games behind the 6th seeded Charlotte Hornets team. If they do manage to play their cards right and turn back to their winning ways, the Knicks could rise up the standings yet again.
