CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Many of his fellow starters owe point guard Kemba Walker an apology for ruining his first game in Charlotte as a Knick.
Other than Walker, the Knicks’ starters couldn’t get it done on a wild night before a wild crowd at Spectrum Center that was half-filled with New York fans.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau had implored his starting unit, in profane language, to get it together two days earlier, but they still stunk it up.
Walker, who played for Charlotte from 2011-19, came out like monster and the Knicks got up big, but then they disintegrated in the second half of a brutal 104-96 loss to the Hornets on Friday night.
“It sucks,’’ a despondent Julius Randle said on Zoom from a hallway. “It sucks.’’
After the Knicks fell behind by 12 points in the third quarter, the bench nearly saved them again in the fourth, but couldn’t bring it home.
Walker, the all-time leading scorer in Charlotte history, finished with 26 points (9-for-16 shooting, 4-for-8 from 3-point range), but Randle, RJ Barrett and Evan Fournier laid eggs as the Knicks lost their second straight and fell to 7-6. That doesn’t sound bad until you consider the Knicks started 5-1.
“It’s going to take energy, it’s going to take pride, it’s going to take five guys to do it,” Walker said, his face barely visible behind a black mask and purple hat.
“It’s going to take us five, we’ve got to figure it out. We just have to or else,” he said, laughing, “it won’t be good for us. Won’t be good for us. So it needs to get better. It just needs to get better.”
Walker’s 20-point first-half looked like the impetus to a bounce-back win that would’ve put to rest Thibodeau’s “bunch of bulls–t’’ rant about a theory the starting five needed more time to jell.
They still need more time. Randle scored 10 points on 4-for-15 shooting and missed three straight free throws in the final 58 seconds. Barrett was held to two points (1-for-8 shooting) and Fournier finished with five points.
“It seems we don’t have a lot of chemistry right now,’’ Randle said. “We have to keep working through it. Yeah it’s frustrating.’’
Thibodeau went back to Walker, Randle and Barrett in the game’s final minutes, but they didn’t have any spark — even Walker lost his early-game mojo. To add to the Knicks’ woes, backup point guard Derrick Rose seemed to hurt his ankle midway through the fourth quarter.
The starters frittered away what had been a 16-point lead midway through the second quarter, stinking it up on both ends as the Hornets roared back to take a 12-point bulge in the third quarter.
The Knicks’ bench brigade was highlighted by Alec Burks (15 points) and Immanuel Quickley (nine points), who both got hot from downtown. Thibodeau had a tough decision on whether to start putting the starters back in.
“They [the starting five] started the game well, built a big lead, but you gotta play for 48 minutes,” Thibodeau said. “We got into the same situation, where the second half you’re just searching. The bench was in there, there was a long run. Kemba had a good game going and Derrick got nicked up, so that made sense. You got to make a decision how far are you going to ride the bench. It didn’t work. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Ideally you like to bring your starters back.”
Miles Bridges, whom the Knicks passed on in the 2019 draft, was terrific late for the Hornets, finishing with 24 points. Gordon Hayward added 22 points for Charlotte.
After Obi Toppin executed a showboat, breakaway windmill dunk with a little more than five minutes left in the fourth quarter to put the Knicks up by two, the Hornets responded with a vengeance, going on a 12-2 run. The Knicks went 1-for-9 the rest of the way and Bridges answered Toppin a minute later with his own windmill, then stared at the Knicks’ bench sending the fans into a tizzy.
Asked if the Toppin dunk got him ratchet-up, Bridges said: “I felt like it was just the crowd, being in your home arena and have people cheer for the other team, it’s definitely not a good feeling. Our fans showed out, but there were a lot of Knicks fans in there so that got me going.’’
“It’s pretty disappointing but not because it’s in Charlotte, just in general,” Walker said. “I thought we started so well. And just the way the loss [happened] is most disappointing.”
