The New York Knicks don’t play again until this coming Friday. They’ll host the Pacers at the Garden at 7:30. The team will look to make a second half push towards the playoffs.
The Knicks are not out, technically. Twenty-seven games left in the season and they’re 7 games out of the 8th spot in the East. If they do want to make the season exciting, they’ll have their work cut out for them.
Fourteen of their remaining opponents have a record above .500. Even those that are under .500 are ‘in the hunt’ for a playoff spot. The Knicks are known to compete against the best but play down to a lesser/similar opponent, so the road is bumpy.
Despite ending the on a 2-game losing streak, the Knicks ended the All-Star break rather strong. Before the 2-game slide, the Knicks had a 4-game win streak and looked like they could be onto something. However, in typical Knicks fashion, they get our hopes up just to crush them.
There’s no reason to get our hopes up for a playoff push this time around. While fans like to be optimistic about the Knicks, it’s really all they have at this point in time. Well, optimism and draft picks. They’ll will have plenty of opportunities to build for the future but for now they’re stuck.
For the Knicks to make a push for the playoff, they need to find that confidence they had during that exciting 4-game win streak. The basketball was fun, Mike Miller’s rotations consisted of good combinations and they played like a team. While it can’t the Knicks night every game, it’ll have to be down the stretch to make the playoffs.