https://youtu.be/qbHBTOwy4Tk
In has past three games, Immanuel Quickley shot 1-of-9, 0-of-4, and 1-of-10 from the field. Combine those numbers with RJ Barrett’s shooting struggles over the time period, and you end up with a lot of despondent Knicks fans. Honestly, if I was subjected to a team that was bricking that many shots, I would become despondent too.
But the despondency has met its (likely temporary) demise, as not only did Barrett shoot 7-of-15 from the field in this one (while clanking fewer threes than usual), but Quickley also turned in a 7-of-15 shooting performance for his best game as a pro up to this point. You would think that Knicks fans’ hope and optimism would be gone, but that’s not the case. Their souls are battered, but not completedly subjugated, by the Knicks’ persistent awfulness, and they still have the emotional capacity to get excited for young players who play well. Quickley is surely the target of some of this optimism. He’ll probably trample on that optimism by turning back into a pumpkin for the next game, but such is live for the inexplicably helpless Knicks franchise and its fans.
The good news is, if the Knicks’ hot start turned out to be a mirage and they’re actually not very good at all, Randle is playing well enough that he can be traded to a contender for a first-round pick and some random young “talent”. Then, the Knicks can finish out the season averaging 90 PPG per game, and they’ll get an extra roll of the dice in the draft, and everything will turn around. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?