The four-game western swing proved the Knicks may be better with Mike Miller as head coach and without Dennis Smith Jr. as point guard.
As the Knicks return to the Garden to face the Hawks on Tuesday, Smith, the cornerstone piece to the Kristaps Porzingis blockbuster, is currently out of the rotation despite Miller’s passive-aggressive approach of refusing to acknowledge this development after their 2-2 trip.
Smith was last seen struggling in the trip’s disastrous opener in Portland. As he missed the final three games of the journey, the Knicks ran off their season’s first two-game winning streak and then scared the daylights out of the Nuggets on Sunday.