Randle Melts Down as Knicks Lose Third Straight

You'd expect the head coach to hold the team's only All-Star accountable at some point. But we are still waiting...

Back on December 11th, in a victory over the Kings at MSG, Julius Randle was hit with two technicals and ejected in the third quarter after berating referee Robert Hussey.

After the game, Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau defended Randle.

"I get the frustration. It was a physical game, and he got hammered on the play," Thibodeau said that Sunday evening. Thibs then took it a step further, seeming to implicate Randle's teammates for not intervening and getting in between the power forward and the official. 

"When a guy gets frustrated, we got to make sure (we) help," Thibodeau declared. "When he got the first tech, we have to do a better job of helping him walk away, as a team, staff, all of us ... Go grab him. It's a dead-ball."

During the heart of this 2022-23 season, with the Knicks winning games at an impressive clip and Randle playing the best basketball of his career, Julius did a good job keeping his emotions in check, for the most part. He frequently talked about how important his "mentals" were in his evolution as a player and teammate.

However, Randle has regressed in that department in recent weeks. In a loss to the Clippers during the Knicks' West Coast road trip earlier this month, Randle's emotional outburst at the end of the third quarter doomed New York. And in the three games the Knicks have played this week, he's been hit with a tech in each contest.