RJ Barrett benched in 2nd half of embarrassing Oklahoma City defeat – New York Daily News

Tom Thibodeau’s fruitless seek for solutions Sunday led to RJ Barrett on the bench.

After getting burned all day by fellow Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Barrett logged simply two minutes in the second half and 19 total throughout an embarrassing 145-135 Knicks defeat to the Thunder.

Part of it was foul hassle, with Barrett amassing his fourth private early in the third quarter. But Thibodeau by no means re-inserted his second-leading scorer.

“I’m fine,” Barrett reassured, “I’ve played a lot of basketball.”

Still, Sunday was the low level for Barrett throughout one other inconsistent season. He shot 2-for-10 whereas lacking a number of out-of-control makes an attempt on the rim.

And though Barrett has taken delight in defending the opposition’s high perimeter risk, Alexander, who dropped 37 factors, simply turned the most recent star to place up large numbers in that matchup.

“It falls on me for sure because I was guarding Shai and he got me into some foul trouble,” Barrett mentioned. “And that’s not good. I got to do a better job of not fouling. Especially the silly one in the third. So I got to do better with that, too.”

Thibodeau, who has turn into more and more versatile (some would possibly say determined) together with his rotations, closed  Sunday with three starters — Julius Randle, Jericho Sims and Cam Reddish — and two reserves — Immanuel Quickley and Evan Fournier.

They reduce the result in single digits however by no means really threatened OKC’s victory.

“We just got behind by so much,” Thibodeau defined of benching Barrett. “We were looking for life and that group that was in there gave us a little bit of a spark and so that’s what we went with.”

Although Fournier missed all three of his fourth-quarter photographs and was booed from the Garden matinee crowd, Thibodeau by no means returned to Barrett, Jalen Brunson or Quentin Grimes.

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“Once we cut the deficit to 10, 8, I wanted to see where it would go,” Thibodeau mentioned.

Brunson is a playmaking spark plug however continues to be a defensive legal responsibility, which has helped the opposition really feel giddy about launching a league-high 40.4 3-point makes an attempt per sport towards the Knicks earlier than Sunday’s embarrassment.

Brunson was definitely understanding of his fourth-quarter DNP.

“I wouldn’t have played myself either, the way I was playing defensively,” he mentioned.

Barrett, regardless of his benching and ugly efficiency, pushed again at the concept that he’s struggled this season at ending on the rim.

He mentioned that was extra remoted to Sunday.

“Don’t say that. I’m shooting 60-something percent in the paint (down to 58.8% after Sunday). Look at some stats,” Barrett mentioned. “But a day like today, they were packing the paint. The sprays were available. We just have to do more what they did. Everybody touch the ball. Everybody moving. It’s a lot on me. I took a lot of bad shots.”