Madison Square Garden was decked with elbows and folly.
For the second straight Christmas, the Knicks were embarrassed at home in front of a national audience, showcasing their ineptitude in a 102-91 loss to the Wizards on Thursday, which extended the Knicks’ franchise-worst start (5-26) and marked their single-season franchise-record eighth straight loss at the Garden, sixth straight overall and 16th in their past 17 games.
And Knicks forward Quincy Acy managed to make the afternoon even uglier.
Having been dominated by John Wall (24 points, 11 assists) all game, Acy ensured that there would be one drive the All-Star guard didn’t score on.
With 5:31 remaining in the fourth quarter and the Wizards leading 91-80 – the Knicks’ smallest deficit since the first half – Acy ended any momentum by committing a hard foul away from the basket, prompting a shove from Wall. Acy then retaliated by throwing a wild elbow at Wall’s face. Wall received a technical foul and Acy was ejected after receiving a Flagrant Foul 2.
Afterwards, Acy had no regrets about the incident.
“What was done wrong?” Acy asked. “It was just a foul. If somebody has a fast break and you step in front of them and grab them, it’s the same concept. I stepped up and stepped in front of him and just stopped the break. He got up and reacted and then I just grabbed him.”
Heading out for a three-game West Coast road trip, Knicks coach Derek Fisher said he didn’t believe Acy should be suspended, believing he wasn’t trying to injure the Wizards’ MVP candidate.
“He looked like he was winding up, but he ended up kind of coming around the backside of him. So he didn’t throw a punch at any point, so hopefully the league will see it that way,” Fisher said. “I think if there is intent to create that situation that is not necessarily who we want to become. That wasn’t Quincy’s intent. Instead of letting a guy score, I think he just wanted to give a foul and see if we could play from there. I don’t think any of our guys are built in a way to intentionally hurt guys or create that type of scenario.
“If anything, [what] we want to do as a team is become a group where we don’t necessarily put ourselves in that situation at all, play at a high enough level that all those things are beneath us.”
Instead, the Knicks pushed themselves beneath every team in the league, now a full game behind the tanking Philadelphia 76ers (4-23), though they have a better winning percentage.
The holiday was as miserable as most days this season, with the disparity between one of the league’s fastest rising powers and one of the league’s withering traditional powers evident early and often.
The Wizards (20-8) made a mockery of any defensive efforts employed by the Knicks, opening with an 11-2 lead and remaining comfortably ahead the entire game, closing the first half with a 7-0 run to take a 60-44 halftime lead after shooting over 61 percent from the field. After falling behind by 22 in the third quarter, the Knicks never cut the deficit to single digits in the second half, earning a once unthinkable league-high 26th loss.
“The fans are dying, we’re dying,” said Carmelo Anthony, who scored a game-high 34 points. “We’re out there and we’re not producing. I didn’t expect to be sitting 5-26. As much as I feel for the fans, I feel for us going through it. I don’t expect anybody to feel sorry for us, I don’t expect anybody to feel sorry for me, but I feel what the fans are feeling.
“We gotta start trying to put a whole game together. We have spurts throughout the course of the game where we are showing something … then there’s times where we show we’re not even out there on the basketball court.”
For the national TV slate next Christmas, that might be the case.