GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Thought to be contenders, the New York Knicks are the runaway leaders as the NBA’s biggest bust thus far. The superstars haven’t been super, the offensive guru coach can’t fix the offense and the team is closer to last place than first in the Eastern Conference at 7-13.
“It’s not a great feeling. The whole purpose of playing is to contend for a championship and right now we’re not on that pace, on track right now to contend, so we’ve just got to keep getting better,” forward Amar’e Stoudemire said. “It’s a long season, but we can’t have any excuses. We’ve got to start winning now. We’ve got to start playing top-notch basketball right now, so we’ve got to get it going.”
That won’t be easy this week, with the Knicks playing four games in five nights. Even worse, they don’t know if Carmelo Anthony and Baron Davis will be available.
Neither practiced Monday and coach Mike D’Antoni said both would probably be considered doubtful to play tonight against the Detroit Pistons. The Knicks would like to win that one, because they play the Chicago Bulls and Boston Celtics during their back-to-back-to-back set that starts Thursday.
“We’ve got to get going now,” Stoudemire said. “It’s an important part of the year where we’ve got to get going. We’ve got to try to win by any means right now, so we don’t want to get too behind to where we have to dig out of deep hole. We’ve got a deep enough hole as it is now.”
The Knicks have lost three straight and nine of their last 10 games, with Anthony missing the last two because of injuries to his right ankle, right thumb and left wrist. He said the latter two are feeling better and he hoped to play tonight because his team is struggling. But doing that the first time made Anthony’s injuries worse.
“If we were winning, I would try to take my time. But right now I want to try to push and see what I can do,” said Anthony, who will work out today before a decision is made.
Davis still hasn’t played because of a herniated disc in his back. The Knicks believe he’s the key to getting their offense going whenever he is ready. They hoped that would have been last week during their four-game road trip, but D’Antoni said the plan now is to have him practice Wednesday and see how he feels from there.
Despite getting Tyson Chandler to play between Anthony and Stoudemire, the Knicks are in the bottom half of the NBA with an average of 93.7 points and 41.4 percent shooting.
“I feel like we definitely have the pieces,” Chandler said. “I feel like we haven’t come together yet, and it’s a process.”
