Knicks Links 12/26/18: Knox a creature was stirring, not even the Garden

Merry Day After Christmas! Did everyone get what they wanted? Hopefully nobody was asking for a Knicks win. Santa and Rudolph can’t compete with a runaway tank.

Of course, after a huge, mostly-undeserved national TV matinee, there’s a lot to catch up on. I tried to wrangle some of the best stuff from around the web.

Here’s a little tuneage:

How’s that Giannis Eggnogtetokounmpo hangover treating the Knicks?

— Kevin Knox thought the Garden was a little quiet yesterday, according to the NY Daily News’ Stefan Bondy:

“It was fairly quiet in there,” said Kevin Knox, who had 21 points. “That was the weird thing. I didn’t really understand. I don’t know if that’s a New York thing. But it was quiet pretty much the whole game.”

I love ya to death, Kevin, but the reason they were so quiet is because y’all were getting waxed. Listen to the thunder from the crowd right before half when the Knicks had an opportunity to tie the game and tell me they weren’t engaged yesterday.

— Still though, Kev deserves props for playing fantastic lately. Ian Begley got a little insight from the rook about his great play of late:

— Have you heard that Frank Ntilikina got benched again yesterday with his mom in town? If you haven’t, well, boy do I have a surprise for you. First, from Marc Berman of the NY Post:

After the loss, Ntilikina dressed slowly and quietly in the Knicks’ locker room and, for once, there were no French reporters to record his thoughts. Ntilikina, who received three DNPs earlier this month, spoke more softly — and somberly — than usual.

“I don’t know how long it will be [this time],” Ntilikina told The Post. “I can’t predict each and every game in the future. One thing I can do is get ready for each and every one — which I will do. Practice hard, get ready physically and mentally for the next game.”

...

“Did I know that I would not play today?” Ntilikina said with an edge. “Coach makes his decision during the game. So you don’t know. You know that, right?”

— Here’s Fiz’s justification for the Frank benching:

— Jonathan Macri at Knicks Film School tries to figure out where exactly we are with Frank right now after this latest benching.

— From Kelly Whiteside at the NY Times, a little pre-Christmas reporting on Frank about how the recent shooting in his hometown of Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market affected him this holiday season.

— Begley writes that the Knicks hope that their time as a Christmas opening act may soon fade away and lead to them being the headliner.

— This piece about New York City Christmas traditions by Eliza Shapiro, Liz Robbins and Tyler Pager in the New York Times contained maybe the most Knicks paragraph of all time:

Before the game, the Barons stood in line to get Bernard King’s autograph, special on this day because the father was at the Garden in 1984 to see King drop 60 points against the Nets, still a franchise record for a Christmas game. The Knicks lost all the same.

— Chris Iseman of the Bergen Record spoke with Noah Vonleh about Vonleh’s unenviable task of guarding Giannis yesterday (which he actually did quite well).

— Jonathan Lehman at the NY Post writes that Allonzo Trier’s return from injury yesterday reminded the Knicks of just how much they miss the kid’s scoring.

— Eli Cohen at The Knicks Wall wonders if Luke Kornet should have more of a role on this young and rebuilding Knicks team.

— Maybe Enes Kanter needs to stay in NY after all — apparently he spent his first NBA paycheck on pizza.

— In case you missed it, in a relatively throwaway line of a Frank Isola piece about Steve Mills, he claimed an agent believes that Kevin Durant is strongly leaning towards the Knicks:

And for what it’s worth, according to several NBA executives who attended last week’s G-League Showcase in Las Vegas, the general consensus is the Knicks are still very much in play to land Durant.

“Everyone says Knicks,” said one prominent player agent.

That’s all for today! Get stoked for ANOTHER game against the Bucks tomorrow!