Clippers 114, Knicks 105: ‘Austin Rivers has an NBA2K create-a-player beard’

That was awesome! It was awkward. But, mostly awesome!

It was awkward because, as Al Iannazzone remarked, the last four Knicks head coaches were at The Staples Center Monday night. There were only 185 Knicks wins between those four coaches. 185. The number did not make a jump to 186, either.

The game was awesome because this is the exact type of game Knicks fans would love to see the rest of the year. A relatively quick and painless loss against a team they would probably never beat regardless of how hard they tried. If anything, the speed at which the Clippers took care of the Knicks tonight was kind of a good thing. The Clippers were an incredibly entertaining team a few years ago but have become one of the most boring and monotonous squads in basketball since then.

They’re so boring that they had P&Ter Kristopolis looking at Austin Rivers’ beard and not the game. Like, they don’t have a fun player like, say, Milwaukee does, and they don’t have a fun ensemble of contributors like the Warriors do.

They have Jamal Crawford, though, and it is absolutely the shared opinion of Knicks fans that we’d love for him to play basketball forever. At this point, the dude just might.

If we’re being completely honest, there isn’t a hell of a lot more to say about this game. It was great for the tank, and that’s much more important than anything else, right now. The game was never close, but it wasn’t ever really a blowout, either. That’s the ideal thing; it helps the tank and it helps the morale as well — fan morale, not player morale. The Clippers are a playoff team that New York simply does not have the talent to compete with.

Inside the Knicks remaining games, they’ll play several more playoff-bound opponents—all anyone can hope for the rest of the year is more games like Monday’s. Especially if it means a chance to give some young players (namely Chasson damn Randle) some run.

Let’s check out some notes, I promise to make it short and sweet:

• Blake Griffin: Blake had one of his best games of the season on Monday night, dropping 30 points (including an absolutely infuriating 3-4 from downtown, but just 3-7 from the FT line), 6 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and a block. At times, Blake was doing his usual huffing and stuffing which is always tough to handle. Other times, he seemed to quite simply have too much length for the Knicks, which seems like an odd thing to say about Blake Griffin, but it just looked like his activity and length down in the post was bothering New York. Whatever, we don’t have to see him again this year!
• Carmelo Anthony: The tank moves steadily along with another paltry 3-point shooting night from Melo. He went just 1-5 from beyond the arc and was about as “meh” as you could ask for in just about any other statistical category. He scored 16 points, had four rebounds and an assist. He looks ready to go play for some other team.
• Kristaps Porzingis: No caps lock tonight, and I mean it. This is a very serious recap.

KP led the way with his 18 point, 11 rebound double-double. He didn’t have much help, and frankly has probably mentally checked out as well, but seeing him play in tandem with Hernangomez and Randle is exciting. Pls be our future 4, 5 and 1’s, respectively.

• Bench: It was good! Randle, Justin Holiday and Ron Baker combined for 26 points off the bench. In addition to that, Mindaugas Kuzminskas scored 8 points, and even Marshall Plumlee scored 4 points and had 4 rebounds. The bench was the main reason the Knicks cut a 25-point deficit down to a 7-point deficit. The bones of a very good supporting cast are there, now if they could only find a starting lineup worth caring about.

***

Alright, that was a longer than anticipated, sorry!

In all seriousness, though, there are the types of games we want to see. They’re painless, and they’re going to help us get used to the offseason without the Knicks a little sooner. New York will next be in Salt Lake City where they’ll play the Jazz on Wednesday at 10:30 PM E.T.