Josh Hart’s absence is glaring.
The Knicks certainly miss his do-it-all impact, as their 130-119 loss to the 76ers on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden dropped them to 2-3 in five games since he went out with a sprained ankle.
They play noticeably slower without him there to push the pace in transition. Their offensive rebounding dominance has pretty much vanished. They lack a physical perimeter defender.
“At the end of the day, having Josh out there helps a ton,” coach Mike Brown said. “… Right now, our pace is not good. We’re walking the ball up almost every time and then everything is just going to the front side. It’s been a while, at least these last two games, our staples — our pace in the full court and the front court, we wanna space the floor correctly, we wanna make quick decisions, we wanna touch the paint and we want the ball getting reversed — and we haven’t seen a lot of any of that.”
And the Knicks will be without him for at least a little while longer. He is only doing light court work and won’t be reevaluated until next Friday.
Without him, Brown started Mitchell Robinson and moved Karl-Anthony Towns to power forward, where he has struggled this season. Both Towns and Robinson had rough showings Saturday, and neither is at his best when on the court together.
Brown has little choice at the moment. Kevin McCullar Jr. and Mohamed Diawara have entered the rotation in an attempt to fill Hart’s role and they largely have not been difference-makers, though each has had moments.
Hart’s fingerprints are usually all over the boxscore. Beyond the stats, he is their energizer when they are sluggish and down in games.
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It’s not a coincidence the first lull for the Knicks in weeks has come without him.
“Obviously, we miss him,” Jalen Brunson said, “but there is no excuse to what we should be doing out there. Obviously, he’s a big part of what we do, but we gotta step up.”
Robinson returned for Saturday’s game against the 76ers at MSG after missing the previous three games for load management. He recorded two points and five rebounds in 19 minutes.
He had his best game of the year the last time the Knicks faced the 76ers, finishing with 21 points and 16 rebounds — 10 of them offensive. Saturday, though, he failed to impact the game.
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James Nnaji, who played with the Knicks during the summer league but was recently given college eligibility by the NCAA and joined Baylor, made his collegiate debut Saturday in the team’s loss to TCU. He played 16 minutes and recorded five points and four rebounds along with four fouls.
The Knicks acquired — and still own — his draft rights from the Hornets as part of the three-team Towns trade ahead of last season.
