Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama celebrates after scoring against the Houston Rockets.
AP
These things always are cautionary because you simply never know, game to game, what a team is going to look like in the latter stages of an NBA season. Guys get hurt. Bad teams tank. Good teams with postseason seedings secured sit players nursing injuries or just to keep their legs fresh for the playoff rigors ahead.
The Knicks returned to action Thursday night after an eight-day break for All-Star Weekend with 27 games left to go. Plenty of stinkers lie ahead in that grouping, but there are also 10 gems — or there should be, anyway — that should be genuine measuring-stick, benchmark games.
Of course, Thursday against the Pistons — Detroit’s only regular-season visit to Madison Square Garden — was supposed to be the first of those. That was before both Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart — the core of their bruising frontcourt — were suspended thanks to the Feb. 9 brouhaha in Charlotte. The first two meetings in Detroit also were marred somewhat because of Knicks absences — no Josh Hart or Landry Shamet in the first game, no Karl-Anthony Towns or OG Anunoby in the second.
We won’t actually see the real Pistons play the real Knicks until/unless there’s a playoff rematch in their future come May.