I like the positivity. Mitch Lawrence:
D'Antoni revealed Thursday that he recently set a goal of 40 wins, meaning that the Knicks would have to go 16-9 over their final 25 games. The way things have gone over the last four seasons at the Garden, 16 wins sometimes represented two-thirds of a season's total for the Knicks.
"We've got to try to somehow get close to 40 wins and we've got 24, so we need 16, any which way," D'Antoni said after practice at Greenburgh. "If we win our last 16 in a row, I'll take that. Somehow we've got to get there. That will give us a good chance to get into the playoffs."
Lawrence goes on to point out that while the Knicks play the majority of their remaining games on the road, only 10 meetings are against teams that are .500 or better. Forty wins would mean going 16-9 from here on out, which is nothing short of a pipe dream if the Knicks don't start handling lesser teams and robbing better teams. The home stretch begins tonight against the Sixers, who've pasted the Knicks in all of their meetings this season. A win over Philly would be a nice start to this wild playoff push D'Antoni has planned.