Zach Lowe

I'm starting to think that the weirdness has just overtaken them and it may be the defining feature of their season.

They're still just rock solid by the numbers.

They haven't beaten really any good teams since they beat the Spurs at home and then came back and had a great run against the Rockets at home.

And there's just something about them.

I went on Ian Begley's show earlier this week and I compared it to the sensation you have

when there's a word or like a name, like a trivia answer on the tip of your tongue and you've got it, but you just can't quite form it.

That's what watching the Knicks is like to me.

It's like they...

For whatever reason, every third game, they catch a role.

They catch a vibe where the pieces suddenly click into place.

And you're like, that's the team.

That's the team I picked to make the finals.

And you're not even sure what happened to click them into place or why all of a sudden they are greater than the sum of their parts.

And then just as quickly as you've digested that and been happy about it, they lose it.

And we go back to this like, hey, they're still pretty good.

It's not like their slumps are bad other than the one in the middle of the season when they were two and nine over an 11-game stretch.

But it's like, it's clunky.

And cat doesn't take shots and teams are switching the Brunson cat pick and roll and putting their centers on Josh Hart.

And an issue that the Knicks look like they had kind of solved one game ago is now just completely gumming up their offense.

And it just, it's just this ineffable mystery to me that like they have it and then they don't.