Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
The Knicks will get three more chances in April to be more competitive against the two teams above them in the Eastern Conference standings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They are winless in five tries against the Cavaliers and the Celtics this season following consecutive road defeats over the weekend \u2014 and 0-7 when you add in two more losses to the Thunder, the leaders in the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With an average margin of defeat of 20.1 points in those games, is it realistic to expect that gap to be closed this season for a Knicks squad with aspirations of advancing deeper into the playoffs following two straight second-round eliminations?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I would say is, we all have to be cognizant of the fact that those three teams are doing this to everybody,\u201d longtime ESPN analyst Tim Legler told The Post. \u201cBut the Knicks, with the expectation level coming off of last season, then you make the trade for [Karl-Anthony] Towns, that\u2019s now the measuring stick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do we stack up to the Celtics? How do we stack up to the Cavs? And even OKC? It clearly has not gone well for them, and for me, what it comes down to is offensively they can go toe-to-toe with those teams. But the difference is that those three teams have a level that they can go to defensively with their pressure and their team speed and just with their commitment to it that the Knicks just can\u2019t match at that end of the floor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
TNT analyst and former Knicks guard Greg Anthony also acknowledged the third-seeded Knicks are not on the level of the league\u2019s elite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought of this as a championship-or-bust season for the Knicks, and I do think long term they\u2019ve put themselves in a better position to compete for a title,\u201d Anthony told The Post. \u201cIf this season ends early, [Knicks president] Leon Rose and the front office are going to have to figure out why and the other areas to address.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think by watching these games in particular, they need to be better defensively, they need to improve their depth and they still need some more athleticism. That much is obvious.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After watching the Knicks get torched Friday night in Cleveland by 37 points, Legler said he expected Tom Thibodeau\u2019s team to show \u201cthey had enough\u201d and that \u201cthey would come out and draw a line in the sand\u201d against the Celtics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then they were down by 20 in the first quarter,\u201d added Legler, who served as an analyst for Sunday\u2019s game for ABC. \u201cI know they made it a game briefly in the second half, but what we are seeing is that these three teams are so hard to guard, and the Knicks are just not an elite defensive team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when you throw an average defensive team at any of those three teams when they\u2019re playing with sharp focus \u2014 which I don\u2019t know if Boston was doing earlier in the year, but they definitely are now \u2014 you can get some of these margins where these buzzsaw games take place and you can\u2019t slow it down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then the question becomes, what do you do about it?\u201d Legler continued. \u201cWell, it\u2019s difficult because I think a lot of it is personnel-based.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both analysts believe the Knicks will be helped by the pending return of center Mitchell Robinson from injury for the first time since undergoing ankle surgery last May, although Legler stressed that \u201cit\u2019s not realistic\u201d to expect the injury-prone 7-footer \u201cto have a major impact right away.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, Legler also noted that Towns \u201cis totally being picked on\u201d by opposing teams in ball-screen actions away from the basket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese teams in particular will just destroy you in that action. That\u2019s all Boston runs,\u201d Legler said. \u201cThe difference is they have five guys who all can run it at a high level and all of their guys can really shoot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they force the Knicks\u2019 other defenders into rotation and just count on the fact that it\u2019s going to be overwhelming for them. In these matchups, it has been.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Knicks (37-20) will face the reeling 76ers at the Garden on Wednesday night before playing seven of their next eight games on the road. <\/p>\n
They will visit Cleveland one more time on April 2 and also will play both the Cavs and the Celtics at MSG later that month before the playoffs begin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, there\u2019s no question you\u2019re ultimately going to be judged by how you fare against the best teams. And obviously to have success in the postseason, you\u2019re gonna have to play them and beat them,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cThey have not fared well at all, but having said that, I think they\u2019re better than they\u2019ve shown so far in those moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think from a defensive standpoint, they haven\u2019t performed like Tom Thibodeau teams historically have. Obviously, from defensive and depth standpoints they still aren\u2019t where they need to be. I really like their lineup at the top with [Jalen] Brunson and KAT at the offensive end, but they still have a lot of work to do to close the gap.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Josh Hart was fined $2,000 by the NBA for flopping in the third quarter of Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic The Knicks will get three more chances in April to be more competitive against the two teams above them in the Eastern Conference standings.\u00a0 They are winless in five tries against the Cavaliers and the Celtics this season following consecutive road defeats over the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220414,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220412\/revisions\/220414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}