Welcome to the Morning Shootaround, where every weekday you’ll get a fresh, topical column from one of SI.com’s NBA writers: Howard Beck on Mondays, Chris Mannix on Tuesdays, Michael Pina on Wednesdays, Chris Herring on Thursdays and Rohan Nadkarni on Fridays.
Sir Isaac Newton probably didn’t have the Knicks in mind when he developed the law of gravity. But given how aggressively New York subscribes to the theory of what goes up must come down, he might have.
In recent years the Knicks and their loyal fans had grown accustomed to mid- and late-season collapses.