If the New York Knicks’ track record this season is any indication, the tonic for what ails them might be the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Knicks and 76ers will each be looking to snap slumps Wednesday night, when New York hosts Philadelphia in a battle of longtime rivals.
The Knicks have been off since Sunday, when they fell to the host Boston Celtics 118-105. The 76ers suffered their eighth straight loss Monday night, when the visiting Chicago Bulls rolled to a 142-110 victory.
The loss to the Celtics continued a discouraging trend for the Knicks, who are in third place in the Eastern Conference at 37-20 and entered Tuesday tied with the Memphis Grizzlies for the fifth-best record in the NBA.
But the Knicks are 0-7 against the three teams with the best record in the league — the defending NBA champion Celtics as well as the Eastern Conference-leading Cleveland Cavaliers and the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Knicks’ average margin of defeat in the losses is 20.1 points per game — a figure that increased during a brief two-game road trip that began last Friday, when New York suffered its most lopsided defeat of the season in a 142-105 rout at the hands of the Cavaliers.
The Celtics appeared headed for a similarly one-sided win when they opened a 27-point lead early in the third quarter Sunday. But the Knicks hope they found something to build upon during a 35-12 run that bridged the quarters and pulled them within 89-85 before Boston pulled away down the stretch.
“Whatever we did in the first, second and fourth quarter doesn’t really matter,” Knicks guard Jalen Brunson said. “The third quarter, what we showed was how we can play and how we can compete.
“I don’t really care what’s going on — the way we stepped up in the third is how we should play.”
Finding a successful formula has been difficult for the injury-ravaged 76ers, whose losing streak is the longest active skid in the NBA and the longest for the team since the 2016-17 season — the last time Philadelphia missed the playoffs.
Joel Embiid, who continues to battle a chronic left knee injury, sat out for the second time in the last four games Monday, when the 76ers led just once — at 2-0 — and eventually trailed by as many as 50 as they fell 2 1/2 games behind the Bulls in the race for 10th place in the Eastern Conference and the final spot in the play-in tournament.
The 76ers are 12-26 without Embiid this season, but they’ve struggled even when at something resembling full health. Philadelphia is 8-11 with Embiid in the lineup and 7-6 when their big three of Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey have played in the same game.
Opponents are averaging 113.5 points per game against Philadelphia — the most the 76ers have surrendered in a season since the 1972-73 campaign, when they set an NBA record with 73 losses.
“Regardless of who’s playing, who’s not playing, for this group to believe that we can be — not even to get to the playoffs — but make a push towards it, we’ve shown no signs of a team that will compete, and we just don’t have the habits of a champion or what a playoff team would have,” George said.
