Thunder 127, Knicks 109: Scenes from a MLK Day matinee drubbing

There was a basketball game this afternoon. Luckily for us, today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so you’d be forgiven for just taking today to study MLK’s preachings and perhaps trying to find some life lessons to apply to today in these trying times in America.

But the basketball part, it’s tradition! And it’s also been a tradition in recent years for the Knicks to catch an L on MLK Day (outside of last year, when the Grammys kicked them out of MSG, the team was 2-5 in its last seven MLK matinees). Today wasn’t really any different, and the Knicks lost, 127-109.

The Knicks got run off the floor in the first quarter, when the Thunder doubled them up plus two, 34-16. The starting lineup of Emmanuel Mudiay, Kevin Knox, Tim Hardaway Jr., Noah Vonleh and Luke Kornet really had their lunch eaten early on. The Knicks managed to keep it around a 20-point deficit most of the rest of the way, but the damage was done early.

Paul George (31 points on 9-18 shooting in 31 minutes) and Russell Westbrook (17 points, 10 boards, and, surprisingly, only nine assists [that’ll hurt that triple-double average in the long run!]) had a field day against the Knicks. Unless they were matched up with Frank Ntilikina, that is:

Allonzo Trier and Mitchell Robinson hooked up on a couple nice lobs, too!

Mitch finished with eight points on 4-4 shooting, six rebounds and two blocks in 16 minutes... oh, and six fouls, too. Trier had 16 points thanks to 10-10 shooting (!) at the free throw line.

This was a sick dunk by Noah Vonleh:

Tim Hardaway scored an efficient 23 points on 7-14 shooting, but didn’t look great against George & Co. on defense.

Check out KnicksFanTV if you feel like chatting about this L:

I’d honestly go on a little more about this game, but why not leave that to recapper extraordinaire MMiranda? Plus, my corporate overlords didn’t give me the day off today, so I’ve got to start actually working now!