In their first game without star point guard Jalen Brunson on Friday night, the Knicks struggled offensively and fell to the Los Angeles Clippers, 105-95, for their third straight loss.
Brunson is expected to miss at least two weeks with an ankle sprain, as head coach Tom Thibodeau made it clear during the postgame that New York will need to "adapt quickly" to playing without their leader. The Knicks have started their five-game West Coast road trip 0-2 and are now 40-23 on the season, just three games up on the Milwaukee Bucks (36-25) for the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference standings.
"It's a quick turnaround," Thibodeau told reporters after the loss. "So you come in, you have a walk-through in a ballroom. And then we have to adjust and we have to adapt quickly. We have more than enough. And we gotta find a way to get it done."
Thibodeau credited the Clippers (34-29) for being "a really good defensive team," but acknowledged his squad needs to clean up the turnovers (15 on Friday night) and rebounding if they hope to win games without Brunson on the court.
"I thought overall, they shot 42 percent. We out-rebounded them by five. Our turnovers probably hurt us some and we gave up two timely offensive rebounds in a crucial sequence in the fourth," Thibodeau said. "So those are things that we have to clean up.
"And we went in saying, if the defense and the rebounding and keeping the turnovers were down, we'd have a chance to win, and I thought we were in position and went all the way to the end. So we fell short tonight, but there was some good things that happened in the game."