Magic 97, Knicks 73: ‘I actually like Jarrett Jack coaching’

That was...not a fun game to watch.

The Knicks managed to keep it close in the first half against the Magics, only trailing 46-45 at the break, but an amazingly awful 28 total points in the second half sealed New York’s eventual 97-73 loss down the stretch.

The one positive? The Bulls just beat the Hornets, which puts the Knicks in an outright tie with Chicago for the 8th spot in the tank lottery. That’s about all we have to look forward to these days.

Because, look, there just wasn’t really anything good about this game. Well, except maybe one thing: as commenter Rice2012 pointed out, MSG had Jarrett Jack mic’d up tonight, and, yeah, “I actually like Jack coaching” too. He was the star of the night, talking up the Tankerbockers from the bench:

Some other notes? Sure, but only a few, which is about all this one deserves. The longer I talk about this game, the more I’m tempted to just post GIFs of people ripping their eyes out:

— Not one player on the Knicks finished with a positive +/- tonight, in a truly inspiring tank display. Isaiah Hicks led the team with a -5 in 17 minutes of play, scoring four points on 1-6 shooting. Actually, all three of the guys that played in the Westchester Knicks playoff game yesterday posted weirdly decent +/- numbers but had pretty ghastly nights shooting. Luke Kornet finished with two points on 1-4 shooting, and Damyean Dotson went scoreless, shooting 0-5. I guess they were all still depressed from that loss.

— Kyle O’Quinn was the only Knicks player really worth writing home about tonight. He had 13 points, 12 boards and a season-high-tying five blocks. Those swats were a thing of beauty at times:

I’m really leaning towards wanting the Knicks to keep KOQ around on a decent contract this summer. I don’t want to break the bank for the dude, but he deserves a decent contract and I hope he finds it here.

— Frank Ntilikina had a weird night. He got the start and shot 1-8 for two points, which is obviously not ideal. But he showed a willingness to look for his shot at times, which is of course one of the things that he’ll need to do to reach his best self in the future. His defense was also good-to-sublime, as usual:

Also, we did get a nice little highlight from Ntillmatic:

— Tim Hardaway Jr. seemed like he was going to have one of his patented, 2015-era tank-busting masterpieces when he scored 11 points in the first quarter. Ultimately, however, he gave in, and finished with 16 points on 6-13 shooting. Also eight rebounds for Tim, who sometimes seems like kind of a rebounding virtuoso for a shooting guard.

— Courtney Lee played 24 minutes in his first game back after a two-game absence, scoring 13.

— Trey Burke managed to be efficient as usual, scoring 15 on 7-13 shooting. He didn’t really do much in the second half when the tank shifted into high gear (which, now that I think of it, maybe that was intentional).

— Emmanuel Mudiay and Lance Thomas had pretty ugly games, and water is still wet.

So, yeah. Four more games!