The Bounce: The Warriors’ season is over. Can the Knicks save theirs?

The Bounce Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox. I was negligent in failing to mention that Kevin Durant passed Dirk Nowitzki for sixth place in career points with 31,562. After last night, he’s 713 points away from passing Michael Jordan for fifth on the career list. Durant is most likely going to pass Jordan and Kobe Bryant in the next year or two. Just a remarkable and underappreciated career. Also, don’t forget to participate in our Bounce reader survey! At the risk of being overreactionary, the Warriors’ season is essentially over. They still have a lot of games to play, and they still have Steph Curry, Draymond Green and a lot of very good role players. But the news that Jimmy Butler tore his ACL on Monday night when he came down awkwardly on his right knee pretty much guarantees they can’t do anything of significance in the playoffs. The Warriors (25-20) had recently found a groove. They’d won 12 of their last 16 games before last night’s 145-127 home loss to the Raptors. In those 16 games, they had the fourth-best offense in the NBA. Their defense was still pretty good at 13th. And Butler was playing phenomenal basketball, averaging 20.6 points on 52.2 percent from the field and 88.9 percent from the free-throw line. For the season, the Warriors were outscoring opponents by 6.9 points per 100 possessions with Curry, Butler and Green on the floor together. Without Butler, the Warriors have to scramble. They have plenty of small bandage options to throw on the court with their depth (Will Richard, Gui Santos, maybe even Jonathan Kuminga?) in Butler’s place. But no combination can fill exactly what he does on either end of the floor. Will the Warriors turn to Kuminga? Over Steve Kerr’s dead body! Yeah, they might have to. Kuminga had logged fewer than 10 total minutes on the court since Dec. 7 before scoring 20 points in 21 minutes on Tuesday against Toronto. Kerr does not like the way Kuminga fits into the system, but Warriors’ ownership sees things differently. They’re at loggerheads when it comes to Kuminga. So far, Kerr has won that battle. But now he doesn’t really have a choice. To replace some of what Butler brings on the court, you need Kuminga out there. He’s generally responded really well in those situations when injuries gave him a shot. That may fly in the face of them finding a new home for Kuminga before the trade deadline on Feb. 5. Will the Warriors trade Kuminga to find a Butler band-aid? We know the Kings have expressed interest in Kuminga, including this summer when he was a restricted free agent. But the Warriors didn’t like anything Sacramento had to offer. Does the Butler injury change anything on this front? Butler is going to miss the rest of this season and a significant portion of next season (most likely). Would the Warriors be willing to trade Kuminga for DeMar DeRozan? As always, it’s not that simple. Golden State is hard-capped at the first apron, and it’s less than $300,000 away from the second apron. DeRozan makes $2.25 million more than Kuminga. To make a trade work under the rules, the Warriors would need to send De’Anthony Melton with Kuminga to get DeRozan. Is that worth it? Any thoughts of going after someone like Michael Porter Jr. immediately get dashed away by his nearly $40 million deal. The Warriors would have to send Kuminga, Moses Moody and Buddy Hield to make that trade happen, and there’s no way that helps them get closer to a championship. There could be smaller plays within the margins, but nothing makes up for Butler. Unfortunately for the Warriors, this appears to be the end. 🏀 Turbo loading. Deni Avdija is having an All-Star, breakout season and is perhaps Israel’s greatest player ever. Jason Quick profiled his incredible journey. 👟 What are those? LeBron’s shoe line and Nike tried to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a special colorway. They couldn’t have been more wrong about it. 📆 Mark your calendars. The NBA released its finals schedule for June. Big surprise: no more Sunday games. 👀 Protect the lore? “No Dunks” talked to Brent Barry about Michael Jordan’s low NBC appearances. I loved this point from Brent. Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass. Sound the alarms over the Knicks Three weeks ago, the Knicks were on top of the world. Well, they weren’t on top of the Eastern Conference. The Pistons were still in first place. But New York was the NBA Cup champs and rocked a 23-9 record. Since then, the Knicks have completely fallen apart, and I’m not sure you can blame injuries here. Yes, Josh Hart missed seven of the next 11 games, but the main core was mostly still available. The Knicks have lost nine of those 11 games. As we mentioned yesterday, they failed to reach 100 points in four of those losses. Now the vibes are completely off, there’s a ton of tension in the locker room and this doesn’t look like a team that has much business even thinking of winning the wide-open East. I asked The Athletic’s Knicks writer James Edwards III to explain what’s wrong with the team: “Where do we start? There are several ways to go here — like their overall lack of care and urgency — but the one-on-one defense and transition defense have been pitiful. They’re struggling to stay in front of anyone in the half court and failing to communicate in the open court. “New York and New Orleans are the only three teams in the bottom 10 in the NBA in both opponent 3-point rate and rim frequency. That’s not good company. Most teams take away one of those things, but the Knicks aren’t taking away either. “Since Christmas, New York’s defense ranks 28th. That’s not good. To add insult to injury, seven of those 14 games came against 10 of the NBA’s worst offenses.” None of that sounds promising. Karl-Anthony Towns appears to be getting the majority of the ire for what’s happening, and he’s certainly not helping quell any criticism. He’s averaging 21 points, 11 rebounds and three assists, which are right in line with his career averages. But he’s shooting just 35.8 percent from 3 (40.6 percent the previous eight seasons), and he’s missing shots around the rim like never before. He’s 70 percent for his career and 60.5 percent this season. In this video breakdown from former Spurs and Clippers video coordinator Mo Dakhil, you can see a lot of those problems on displayagainst Dallas on Monday. They look like a mess. I asked Mo what he thought New York’s biggest issue was: “There are a lot of things that have gone wrong with the Knicks over the last 10 games. On the court, one of the biggest things is just how bad their transition defense has been. Before this skid, they were 10th in fast-break points allowed; in the previous 10, they are 27th. In the MLK game against the Mavs, they gave up 27 fast-break points … in the first half! “Not saying it fixes everything, but stopping easy buckets would be a good place to start.” The basics aren’t even being done right now. Edwards argues that a trade should be considered. Towns has been a problem under Mike Brown, and it feels like it’s spilling onto the court for the Knicks, from the outside looking in. Is it worth exploring a trade sending KAT out? Does this offense work with Mitchell Robinson full-time? Can you rely on Robinson’s body to keep him out there? Should the Knicks and the Bucks, who are also struggling, reignite the Giannis trade talks? One last thing to consider: Is there such a thing as the NBA Cup curse? The league certainly hopes not! However, the Lakers were 14-9 when they won the inaugural NBA Cup in 2023, and they went just 5-12 following their Vegas win. The Bucks had a shorter 3-5 dip after winning in 2024, but they quickly got their act together. The Knicks are much more in line with what happened to the Lakers than Milwaukee. Rockets 111, Spurs 106: The Spurs were up 16 in the third quarter, and then the Rockets (26-15) came charging back for their biggest comeback of the season. San Antonio (30-14) shot 8-of-13 from deep in the first quarter, and then they went 6-of-37 the rest of the way. That includes 0-of-13 in the fourth. Alperen Şengün had 20 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Reed Sheppard had 21 off the bench. And Victor Wembanyama was held to 14 points on 5-of-21 shooting. Lakers 115, Nuggets 107: Luka Dončić had 38 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists to outduel Jamal Murray. However, Murray’s two halves were very different. He had 26 in the first half and two in the second. The Lakers (26-16) hammered the Nuggets (29-15) on the boards 51-31. Suns 116, 76ers 110: Devin Booker had 27 points, and the Suns (27-17) had five reserves combine for 58 points. It made up for Dillon Brooks going 2-of-13, but he did help hold Tyrese Maxey to 20 points on 25 shots. Jazz 127, Wolves 122: Keyonte George lit up the Wolves (27-17) for 43 points to outduel Anthony Edwards’ 38-point effort. Jusuf Nurkić added 16 points, 18 boards and 10 assists for his second career triple-double as the Jazz (15-29) got their first win without Lauri Markkanen this season. Heat 130, Kings 117: The Heat (23-21) outscored the Kings by 30 points at the 3-point line, knocking down 21 of their 42 attempts. Bulls 138, Clippers 110: A nice little 45-19 second quarter put the Bulls (21-22) in the driver’s seat. Coby White led the way with 27 points, and Chicago’s bench combined for 59