Julius Randle still is looking to rediscover his scoring touch as he works his way back from offseason ankle surgery.
But the two-time All-Star insisted he’s “not making excuses” after his third straight poor shooting game as the Knicks fell to 1-2 with Saturday’s 96-87 road loss to the Pelicans in New Orleans.
“I’ve just gotta continue to get better. I’ve just gotta make shots,” Randle said after missing 11 of 15 field-goal attempts and all five from 3-point land. “I’ve gotta look at the tape, but I’ve just gotta make shots. They’ll fall.”
Randle was forced to sit out one game in the playoffs last spring with an ankle sprain initially suffered late in the regular season.
He acknowledged Saturday that he wasn’t able to practice five-on-five until training camp after rehabbing all summer.
Randle, who also committed eight of the Knicks’ 19 turnovers against the Pelicans, has made just 13 of 47 from the floor (27.7 percent) through three games, including 6 of 20 (30 percent) from long distance.
“He’s being aggressive. He’s attacking,” point guard Jalen Brunson said of Randle, who is averaging 13.7 points through three games. “As a group we need to be better. But we’ve got to help each other be better. It can’t just be like ‘I have to be better’ or ‘He has to be better.’ How can we collectively help each other?
“Julius is gonna command attention, so we need to help him out a little bit.”
The three-game start hasn’t been all bad for Randle.
Saturday’s performance was ugly, but it came after he had become the first player in NBA history to record at least 30 points, 20 rebounds, 15 assists and five made 3-pointers in the first two games of the season, according to Stat Muse.
He nearly recorded a triple-double in Friday’s win in Atlanta with 17 points (4-for-10), 12 rebounds and nine assists.
“I thought that was his best passing game. … He was phenomenal,” Tom Thibodeau said. “And I thought he had the right intentions [Saturday night]. Some of it was, we were a step behind. We were a step slow. So, we gotta make sure we clean that up.
“But for the most part, he’s battling his way through. I knew it would take some time, just let him work his way through it.”
Randle admitted that his eight giveaways — one off his career-high — “should never happen” and that he’d “take full accountability for that,” but said he wanted to “watch the tape” to determine what caused the turnovers.
“We’ve gotta keep doing stuff to get a little bit more flow, help each other out, open the court up, screen away,” Randle said. “I’ve gotta make better reads, get off the ball, stuff like that.”
While Thibodeau acknowledged the high turnover count was “a problem,” he stressed it was more of a team-wide issue.
“We got in a big hole early. … It’s easier to think it’s Julius, but everyone has to work together,” Thibodeau said. “If the outlets aren’t there, you’re a step behind, you’re a step slow. He needs to have three outlets when he’s being double-teamed. So, that’s something we can do better.
“I thought the rebounding was good enough. I thought we covered the [3-point] line well enough. But the problem, the difference in the game — if you defend, you rebound and you’re low turnover, you’ll be in a position to win. We did two of the three, but we need to do three of three when you shoot the ball the way we did.”
Indeed, the Knicks converted only 7 of 37 tries from 3-point range Saturday night after hitting on 44.5 percent (20 of 44) the previous night in Atlanta.
They also committed 16 turnovers against the Hawks but shot their way through the sloppiness.
“I think that’s why we have 82 games,” RJ Barrett said. “Get everybody back in rhythm, everybody back in the flow. Make the mistakes early; all teams are doing that.
“Nobody’s perfect and nobody’s in their perfect stride yet. I think we just gotta keep learning and growing each day, and even when we’re having some growing pains, toughen it out and find a way to win.”
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