Karl-Anthony Cities wasn’t shopping for into the premise of the query.
It was put to him, after Saturday’s Knicks apply, that some may argue he ought to be taking extra pictures given his standing as a famous person.
“I’m about winning, so as long as we’re winning, it’s fine,” Cities stated.
Implicit within the argument, after all, is that Cities getting extra concerned would assist the Knicks win extra video games.
“All I know,” Cities stated, “is as long as we win, we good.”
Which may be the appropriate perspective after Cities put up an underwhelming 10 factors in a Sport 6 win over the Pistons, but it surely’s little secret the Knicks will want extra from him in opposition to the Celtics within the Japanese Convention semifinals.
It doubtless isn’t a lot of a coincidence that one of the best regular-season recreation Cities put up in opposition to the Celtics — a 34-point, 14-rebound double-double on April 8 — was the one one of many 4 matchups between New York and Boston this season that was shut.
Within the different three video games, all blowouts, Cities wasn’t as a lot of an element, with simply 45 factors mixed.
Nonetheless, there was an terrible lot of discuss Saturday about how impactful Cities might be when his shot isn’t going.
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“When there’s a second or third defender coming in, I don’t want him to try to shoot over three people. I want him to make a pass,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau stated of Cities. “If he does that, he’s helping his team. That’s probably the biggest thing. I thought KAT played a terrific Game 6, if you look at the rebounding and the defensive plays he made at the end of that game. That was huge for us. Huge.”
Certainly, it’s true that Cities’ 15 rebounds in Sport 6 led the Knicks and certainly, there are nights the Knicks can win with out him as one among their main scorers.
“We can’t let offense or shots falling dictate the way or how hard we play or the things we can control,” Jalen Brunson stated. “So I feel like a lot of people on this team have that mindset and we’re going to have to, because the longer we go [in] playoffs, the more difficult games are gonna be, so we can’t just let little things like that have an effect on how we’re playing.”
However, it’s onerous to image the Knicks pulling off what could be a monumental upset if Cities isn’t a consider all components of the sport all through the sequence — sure, together with placing the ball within the basket.
Lagging behind scoring-wise in opposition to the Pistons — Cities averaged 19.7 factors within the sequence in comparison with 24.4 in the course of the common season — is one factor.
Doing so in opposition to the Celtics could be one other.
