Knicks' point-guard problem isn't fixed - New York Post

The Knicks had a true point guard in the starting lineup Friday night, but they finished the game with just as many questions as when it began.

Elfrid Payton got the start against the Nets, and yet when it came to crunch time, coach David Fizdale turned to RJ Barrett to run the point with Allonzo Trier and then Wayne Ellington joining him in the backcourt, and the Knicks nearly pulled off a comeback before falling 113-109 at Barclays Center

“It’s difficult. It’s difficult,” Fizdale said of the ongoing search at point guard, before indicating he was still not close to knowing what he wants to do moving forward. “We’ll watch the film. We got a game [Saturday], so you’ll know soon enough.”

The Knicks (0-2) lacked ball movement throughout the night and had 17 assists to 26 turnovers. They went the final 3:41 without a point while turning the ball over three times, falling apart while Nets point guard Kyrie Irving took over.

A game after coming off the bench and earning the starting job for Friday, Payton played 24 minutes while chipping in 10 points, four rebounds, two assists and two turnovers. But he did not play at all in the fourth quarter, ceding point guard duties to Barrett, a natural shooting guard.

“It was good. I feel like I can do that,” said Barrett, who finished with 16 points, six steals, five turnovers, three assists and three rebounds. “Coach trusts me. He has a lot of faith in me.”

Barrett was left to battle one-on-one with Kyrie Irving down the stretch. He teamed with Trier (team-high 22 points, four turnovers, three rebounds, two assists) in the backcourt early in the fourth quarter — the same tandem that started against the Spurs on Wednesday — to help get the Knicks back in the game. When Trier picked up his fifth foul with 6:43 left, it was Ellington, the veteran guard, who came off the bench to replace him and catch fire from deep.

“They brought us back,” Fizdale said. “We defended, we were moving the ball, hitting great shots.

Meanwhile, the three true point guards who spent the preseason competing for the starting spot were nowhere to be seen. Smith played just 4:31 off the bench — all in the first half — and struggled, shooting 0-for-4 with one point and one assist. Frank Ntilikina did not play at all.

“I got four?” Smith asked The Post before a long pause. “It is what it is. … It’s difficult, but I’m a survivor, I’ll be all right. … It is kind of like trying to play to stay in.”

Smith got 10 minutes in the opener and recorded two points and one assist. Friday was a brief continuation of that.

“He’s still in a struggle,” Fizdale said. “I just gotta figure out how to get him out of it. I think he’s just overthinking things a little bit, but we’ll figure it out.”

And so the Knicks remained a work in progress, both in finding a point guard and finding their finishing touch after struggling to do either through their first two games.

“Just a lack of cohesion,” Fizdale said. “Not trusting defensively and executing what we wanted to execute defensively. Offensively it was the same thing. We weren’t moving the ball. We weren’t trying to get the ball to the second side of the ball. We had five or six assists in the first half and finished with 17. The ball moved better in the second half. We just have to get out of that mindset that, ‘I’m going to be the one to will it,’ and get to a place where we really start to trust each other.”

For more on the Knicks, listen to this episode of the NY Post podcast, “Big Apple Buckets”:

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