Knicks’ playoff expectations have risen sharply

MIAMI — Expectations change.

If someone had told Knicks fans in September that their team would finish with the fifth-best record in the East, bulldoze Cleveland out of the first round and then be trailing by only a game in the second round, they would have been downright giddy.

Yet that was far from the prevailing mood heading into Monday’s Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Instead, after watching the Knicks play their worst game of the postseason in a 105-86 loss in Game 3, a feeling of absolute panic seems to be permeating the Knicks Twittersphere.

It’s no longer good enough that the Knicks got to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade. Sometimes goalposts get moved. Expectations for this Knicks team shifted dramatically when the Miami Heat, a play-in team, knocked off the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. Greed set in. Suddenly, there was a clear path for the Knicks to get to the Eastern Conference Finals.

And what have the Knicks done with this golden opportunity? Heading into Game 4, they were standing on the precipice of blowing it. The last thing that this team wanted to do was fall behind at 3-1 and have to face the prospect of being eliminated on their homecourt Wednesday.

Can you say desperate?

“Yeah, I think every game is desperate if you really think about it,” Isaiah Hartenstein said at the Knicks Monday morning shootaround. “The playoffs, like I said before, every game is more physical, every game the little details count more. And so going into the game we know how much it means but at the end of the day, we just have to go possession by possession and do the little things to get the win.”

In Game 3, the Knicks didn’t’ do the little things. And they didn’t do the big things.

 The biggest thing they didn’t do is get the kind of production they need from Julius Randle. The Knicks power forward is the team’s only All-Star and he was a non-factor on both ends of the floor. Randle scored just 10 points on 4-for-15 shooting.

Again and again, he couldn’t find a way to get past Bam Adebayo in the paint. In fact, no one on the Knicks managed it. Big men Hartenstein and Mitchell Robinson combined for just two points and eight boards.

“Bam’s fingerprints were all across that win,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Bam has that kind of ability to inspire.”

Perhaps Randle can do that for the Knicks. We saw that happen in Game 2 of this series at Madison Square Garden. Randle returned from his ankle sprain to score 25 points, grab 12 boards and make eight assists. He hustled on defense and his energy carried a Knicks team that seemed relieved to have their best player looking like his dominant self.

It’s possible that Randle’s ankle is hurting more than he is letting on, given that he has sprained it twice in the past two weeks. A sprained ankle shouldn’t have kept him from raising his hands on defense in Game 3. And it shouldn’t have kept him from coming up with a counter punch and showing some resiliency after the Knicks got off to a bad start.

The Knicks don’t need a statement game from Randle in Game 4 to beat the Heat. They managed, after all, to beat Cleveland when he wasn’t playing at an All-Star level. But with Jimmy Butler back on the floor after missing Game 1, Randle can’t have another dud if they are going to win.

The Knicks finally got Randle a point guard who can set him up for success. Jalen Brunson, who w is the most important person on the team, didn’t have a great Game 3 either. Yet, he never stopped fighting, never looked as discouraged as the mercurial Randle did.

Expectations have changed and the Knicks know it.

 So much so that 30 minutes before tipoff, the team announced that Quentin Grimes was going to start in place of Josh Hart, a switch many Knicks fans have been lobbying for all series. It was a small tweak, but the kind Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau hoped would bring some energy to the bench and some three-point shooting to the starting lineup.

Because Thibodeau doesn’t want to go back to New York down 3-1.

 “The intensity each game you play in the playoffs gets higher and higher,” Thibodeau said. “You have to embrace that. So get out there and compete like crazy.”

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.