Knicks Lament Failure to Close

As if his single scene wasn’t intimidating enough, Alec Baldwin’s unnamed character from “Glengarry Glen Ross” would no doubt leave his mark on the New York Knicks if he could address them.

Baldwin told his listeners “Always Be Closing,” but the Knicks failed to heed that advice in the latter half of a four-game road trip: after earning wins in Miami and Detroit, the Knicks fizzled in the fourth against Houston and Atlanta. The latter loss came on Wednesday, when New York let the hosting Hawks take a 121-116 decision.

“We have to close better,” head coach Tom Thibodeau noted in the aftermath (h/t New York Basketball on X). We have to defend and we got to rebound and we got to keep our turnovers down. If we do those three things, you’re in position to win.”

On paper, the Knicks’ 32-27 fourth quarter loss to the Hawks doesn’t seem so bad. But Atlanta close the game on a 16-6 run over the final 2:12 to seal the deal. New York had built a five-point lead with three minutes remaining after a Karl-Anthony Towns three-pointer but allowed Atlanta to score 13 points before they hit another from the field. By then, the Hawks’ lead had expanded to seven and last-ditch efforts from the offense served only to beautify the deficit.

Wednesday served as deja vu in the worst way possible for the Knicks (3-4), who have dropped consecutive games for the first time this season. The loss came two nights after the Houston Rockets outscored them by six in the final dozen en route to a 109-97 victory. While the Knicks never led in that final period, they narrowed a late deficit to as little as one before Houston scored 18 of the 25 points earned over the last five minutes.

Entering Thursday, the Knicks have averaged 25.4 points in the fourth quarter so far this season, which ranks last in the NBA ahead of only developing teams San Antonio and Detroit. New York is also allowing 28.6 points in the fourth, more than two points ahead of last year’s tally (26.2, “which was the third-best mark in the NBA).

“We’ve got to find a way,” said Josh Hart, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Post. “Houston, it was a winnable game at the end of the game. This game [was] obviously very winnable at the end of the game. We’ve got to be able to put teams away at the end of close games.” 

The Knicks’ next opportunity to do so lands on Friday night when they briefly return to Madison Square Garden to face the Milwaukee Bucks (7:30 p.m. ET, MSG).

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