NEW YORK _ David Fizdale was trying to remain focused Sunday night, trying to avoid another humiliating game for his young team as they faced another team running out the string, the Wizards.
The Knicks (16-54) are hoping to avoid setting a franchise record for losses in a season, and their 113-110 victory over Washington at the Garden kept that hope alive. To beat that 17-win season of four years ago, they must sweep their last two games or go 1-1 to tie it.
The Wizards (32-49) already had headed into rebuild mode, having fired team president Ernie Grunfeld last week.
It is a nightly task for the Knicks to try for a win or at least to avoid embarrassment. Fizdale had no notion of emptying the bench Friday night in Houston as the clock wound down, with the team down to nine healthy bodies for the game. Predictably, the Rockets toyed with the Knicks for much of the night.
Fizdale was trying to coax what he could out of the undermanned squad in the final minutes and didn't notice that the Rockets bench was emptied onto the court and that the starters departed for the locker room with approximately a minute and a half remaining.
Fizdale downplayed the move by James Harden, Chris Paul and the rest of the Rockets starters in a game that the Knicks had trailed by 42 points. The move was pointed out during the game by Knicks analyst Walt Frazier.
"I didn't realize it during the game," Fizdale said. "I found out later. I don't know what they left for. It's not for me to try to figure that stuff out. I was trying to focus on our guys playing a good fourth quarter.
"I don't think it happened to me. I can't recall necessarily, but I don't think this was something directed at me or our guys. That's their decision to do what they want to do, and mine is to get our guys playing hard. And I was focused on pushing through that fourth quarter. I don't really have an opinion on it. That's something you have to ask the other team how they felt about that. Our guys I know were focused on the game and playing hard."
The Knicks have spoken at times of needing to earn the respect around the league, whether it is from the opposition or the referees. With a 15-64 record entering Sunday's game against the Wizards, the Knicks are aware they have a ways to go in that regard.
"Yeah, you've got to earn it. That's for sure," Fizdale said. "You've got to earn it all the way around the league. That's something they understood coming into this. All these guys, they knew that people were going to be going at them and really trying to get them steeled up because that's what the league does for you. The refs are going to call the game for who's aggressive and who's physical and who's taking it to the hoop. And that's something that our guys are having to learn."
Lance Thomas, the longest-tenured Knick on the league's youngest team, said: "If that's what they did, that's what they allow their players to do over there, that's on them." But he agreed with Fizdale that respect is something that must be earned by the young team.
"We're going to need to keep fighting," Thomas said. "We've seen a little of everything this year. That's only going to make our guys grow faster and be more mentally tough throughout their careers. That's all I got to say about that."
A Rockets spokesperson told the New York Post that the players had left early to start treatment. Harden, however, was already on his way out of the arena Friday by the time Fizdale was conducting his postgame media session. He exchanged goodbyes with Fizdale as he headed out just minutes after the game ended.
The Knicks have plenty of problems of their own as they go through the final games, and Fizdale insisted he wasn't worried about what the Rockets did.
"I'm not losing any sleep about it," he said. "I got a game today. We got the Wizards. I think you guys know me. I'm focused on what's in front of me. I don't get caught up in that stuff. Again, you don't know what they had or what they had going on. I don't like to speculate on stuff like that."
