With 20 games remaining, the skidding Knicks suddenly find themselves in a five-team dogfight just to avoid a play-in position in the Eastern Conference.
The next three games for coach Tom Thibodeau’s shorthanded squad will face teams from that group, with Friday’s home game against the Magic followed by back-to-back games Sunday and Tuesday – both also at the Garden – against the 76ers.
With these two teams in action Wednesday night, the Knicks (36-26) slipped to fifth place in the East, a half-game behind the Magic, who handed the plummeting Wizards their 16th consecutive defeat.
The Knicks remain a half-game ahead of the sixth-place Heat, and they are now a game ahead of the Sixers, who blew a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost at home to the Grizzlies.
“Sometimes when it pops up, but I don’t think about it too much,” Josh Hart said when asked afterward Tuesday’s loss to the Hawks if he looked at the scoreboard. “At the end of the day, I think if this team gets back together, we can make some noise. Obviously you don’t want to participate in the play-in. You would like to have three or five days of rest before the first round.
“It’s a Thibs cliché, but we’re just trying to take it one day at a time. Obviously we’ll get the guys back soon, but we have to keep attacking. At the end of the day, we are where we are and I love this team.
Jalen Brunson missed all but 47 seconds of the last two games with a bruised left knee.
But Thibodeau said before Tuesday’s game that the All-Star point guard’s MRI came back “clean” and that the injury was “much better than it was” when he was injured Sunday in Cleveland .
Miles McBride, who has played almost 93 minutes in the last two games with Brunson sidelined, also said he avoids looking at the standings. The Heat are also a half-game behind the Knicks with one head-to-head matchup remaining (April 2 at Miami) and the Pacers are 1 ¹/₂ games behind.
“Honestly no. It’s hard to keep up,” McBride said. “I just have to take it one game at a time.”
The Knicks are hoping Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder), OG Anunoby (elbow surgery) and Mitchell Robinson (ankle surgery) can all return to the lineup before the end of the regular season.
“You don’t want to see any of your players get hurt,” Thibodeau said Tuesday. “I know the commitment our guys made, the sacrifices they made.
“Obviously you want to be complete. But injuries are part of the game and that’s the question: how quickly can we adapt as a team? This is the challenge we face.
Veteran big man Taj Gibson, who played in 15 games over two stints with the Knicks earlier this season, agreed to a 10-day contract with the Pistons, ESPN reported.
Gibson, 38 — who also played for Thibodeau with the Bulls, Timberwolves and Knicks earlier in his career — was re-signed by the Knicks in December after Robinson underwent ankle surgery.
Gibson was waived in January but returned with two 10-day contracts in February.
