Knicks were due for dud: ‘You can’t turn it on and off’

Well it seems that one of the neighbors went and called the cops on us. The music was a little too loud. The beer was a little too cold, and a little too plentiful. The hour grew a little too late. Everyone was having way too good a time.

We were due for a buzzkill.

And the Knicks gave everyone a buzzkiller’s buzzkill.

There was a full house at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night, and all 19,842 were hopeful for a sweet joyride against the woeful Hornets, the better to bid the Knicks adieu for the week as they pursue their West Coast business interests in Sacramento, L.A., and Portland.

But a funny thing happened on the way to their 10th win in a row.

“You can’t turn it on and off,” a stone-faced Julius Randle said.

Consider the Knicks duly humbled, and consider the winning streak a memory. The Hornets may be playing out the string, may be dreaming that the pingpong balls somehow yield the golden ticket that is Victor Wembanyama. But for one night, anyway, they were also a stone in the Knicks’ shoe.

The Knicks led by 16 points at halftime and seemed primed to cruise home and zip to the airport, carried west on a tank filled with momentum. Instead there was this 112-105 loss to Charlotte and the sudden reminder that despite playing at a scorching-hot pace the past few weeks they are as vulnerable as anyone when they show up flatter than a Triscuit.

“We were playing with fire,” Tom Thibodeau said, and you have to know that there’s a small portion of the Knicks’ coach’s heart that hopes that if losing a game like this in March will help them fight through a tough night in April, it’ll be a sound investment.

For now, it was just aggravating.

“At the end of the game,” RJ Barrett said, “they were the hungrier team.”

The fact is, the same fundamental traits for which the Knicks earned universal praise during the 25 days between losses were still on display in the aftermath of a snuffed streak and a killed buzz. Thibodeau has consistently praised their accountability and their unwillingness to make excuses.

Tuesday, the Knicks waved off questions about whether Sunday’s epic two-overtime win over the Celtics cost them their legs in the second half as the Hornets overran them. And it wasn’t even worth mentioning that Jalen Brunson missed a second straight game with a sore foot; he wasn’t there in Boston, either, and they figured that out.

They just never did Tuesday. Once the Hornets seized the lead late, it was as if the lights dimmed at the Garden.

“There’s a lot we can learn from tonight,” Thibodeau said.

It would be helpful if those lessons could take across a 3,000-mile flight to Sacramento on Wednesday. The Knicks have been a terrific road team all year — despite their recent surge they still own a better record away from MSG (20-12) than they do in their cozy confines of home (19-16).

And they’re going to need to be. The Nets won for the third straight game and are tied with the Knicks in the loss column. The Heat are still only three back. As quickly as the bulletproof veneer can tumble off a team in the face of one loss, so too can their place in the Eastern Conference order of merit.

“We have to be better,” Randle said. “We have to take care of our business.”

They do. It was a tough night to be reminded of that, because the Garden really did want to send the Knicks off in style before welcoming the college kids into the house for the next four days. They really did want to see the Knicks take a double-digit winning percentage with them on the charter west.

But someone called the cops. Someone murdered the mojo. The Knicks received a harsh reminder that if they don’t practice what Thibodeau preaches, they can kick the plug out of the wall with shocking ease. Such a buzzkill.