MIAMI — And the Warriors are next. Oh, brother.
The Knicks suffered their first humiliation of this long season, getting whacked by David Fizdale’s former Heat team in a 110-87 blowout loss Wednesday night at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Envisioning Friday’s showdown with Kevin Durant’s Warriors at the Garden, Tim Hardaway Jr. said, “It’s going to be difficult. They’re the defending champs. I hope everyone has their mind and body right or it’s going to be a long night. [Thursday] in practice, we got to lock in tremendously or we’re going to get embarrassed.”
They were embarrassed in South Beach. The Knicks turned Rodney McGruder into a young Dwyane Wade, and defensive center Hassan Whiteside into an unstoppable 22-point, 14-rebound force. Miami blew the Knicks out of the building during a 45-point third quarter that included a 19-2 game-sealing run.
Fizdale hinted that the Knicks quit in the second half.
“We let go of the rope tonight — this is the first time it got to us mentally and broke us,’’ Fizdale said. “I told [Heat coach Erik Spoelstra] when we met at halfcourt, it’s no way to treat a friend. This will be good for us. We took our first punch in the mouth where we couldn’t rally back. Maybe it was the weight of having three tough losses.”
The Knicks, who trailed by 27 after three quarters and 30 late in the fourth, fell to 1-4 and next host the world champions at the Garden — a potentially scary evening during Halloween season.
Super optimistic Fizdale said of the Warriors bout: “Awesome. This is great for these kids. They have to learn.”
In each of the Knicks’ prior three losses, they had taken their opponent to the final 1:30 with strong rallies, but Wednesday they had no defensive fight in them during the second-half carnage and shot just 36.3 percent.
They allowed Miami to shoot 48.1 percent and 44.8 percent on 3-pointers and now Fizdale said he likely will shake up the starting unit looking for more of a defensive presence.
Fizdale had preached making the Knicks a dynamo of a third-quarter team but they fell apart after intermission. The Knicks coach said they “didn’t mentally hold it together” and “stopped trusting each other and communicating on defense.”
Hardaway, who finished with 14 points, said once the Heat got scorching in the 45-point third, it was impossible.
“I wouldn’t say it wasn’t competitive,’’ Hardaway said. “They were coming down and [we were] too late on those 3s getting knocked down and they get their confidence going, made shots contested and uncontested. It was too late for us when they got in the groove.’’
This was not the building for the club to let Fizdale down. He spent eight seasons here an assistant coach and at the start of his career was video coordinator with Spoelstra during the height of the Knicks-Heat wars of the late 1990s.
Before the game, Spoelstra said of his buddy: “Early on with Fiz, I felt like he was going to be a star. Just because of his personality, his communication skills and knowledge. You felt like that was a talent.’’
The sad reality is without young franchise bedrocks Kristaps Porzingis and Kevin Knox, both out indefinitely with injuries, and Mitchell Robinson proving more G-League project than rotation guy, the Knicks don’t have enough talent and the starters are struggling as a group.
Trey Burke couldn’t buy a basket, and was 1-of-10 for three points. He could be in jeopardy of being supplanted as starting point guard, perhaps in a scenario in which Frank Ntilikina shifts to point guard and another player is inserted at small forward — maybe red-hot Damyean Dotson (20 points, 10 rebounds). Burke said afterward he thinks the unit needs more time to jell.
The Knicks’ second unit that had been their sparkplug did it again as a foursome of Dotson, Mario Hezonja, Noah Vonleh and Allonzo Trier were on the court together for most of a fast-paced 14-0 run to close the first quarter and give them a 27-16 lead.
And they promptly blew all of it when the starters returned and Miami went up 47-45 at halftime.
“We put our heads down,’’ said starting center Enes Kanter, whose defense has suffered and took a team-worst minus-24. “We stopped competing. It was the first time we just got killed.”