Julius Randle on Heat rebounding: ‘Maybe they want it more’
Maybe they want it more.
That was Knicks’ All-Star Julius Randle’s answer when asked why his team has struggled to dominate the glass against a Miami Heat team that ranked toward the bottom of the NBA in the category during the regular season.
The Knicks finished third in regular-season rebounding rate this season and were projected to lean on that strength against a Heat team that finished the year ranked 26th on the glass.
In Games 1 and 2 against the Heat, the Knicks won the rebound margin, 98-73, and headed to Miami with the series tied at one game apiece. Yet entering Game 5 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, the Knicks had been outrebounded in each of their previous two games: They lost on the glass, 50-48, in Game 3, then were embarrassed in Game 4, when the notoriously undersized Heat outrebounded them by nine in an eight-point victory that sunk the Knicks into a 3-1 series hole.
“Maybe they want it more, I don’t know,” Randle said at the team’s Tarrytown practice facility on Tuesday. “That’s been who we are all year. We’ve gotta find a way to step up and make those plays if we want to keep this season alive.”
Head coach Tom Thibodeau disagreed with Randle’s premise ahead of tipoff against the Heat on Wednesday. Thibodeau twice in the same media availability chalked his team’s shortcomings up to it being “a hard-fought series.”
The coach mentioned rebounding one of a number of areas his team has come up short.
“Wins are hard to come by and usually it’s the intangibles. First two games, we rebounded the ball extremely well. The last two games we have not,” he said. “So when you look at what happens, and what separates you: a lot of times it’s hustle play, turnover, offensive rebound.”
“Nah,” Thibodeau continued when asked if he agreed with Randle that the Heat wanted it more this series. “Like I said, it’s a hard-fought series. It’s not gonna be easy to get buckets. We actually, offensively, I thought we played well. We shot 49 percent. But the thing that hurt us was the rebounding, So we know we’ve gotta do a much better job at that. That’s been one of our strengths all year.”
THUMBS UP FOR GRIMES
Thibodeau says he likes what second-year wing Quentin Grimes brings to the starting lineup.
Thibs started Grimes over veteran wing Josh Hart in Game 4′s loss to the Heat. Grimes played 42 minutes and hit three threes on the night, injecting some defensive toughness and floor-spacing the Knicks desperately needed.
“We could stick with it,” Thibodeau said of the idea of Grimes starting for Game 5. “We could change it. But it was good.”
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