NEW YORK -- David Fizdale took longer than usual to arrive at his post-game press conference on Thursday. The New York Knicks had lost 129-92 to the Denver Nuggets. It was their 22nd game of the season and their 18th loss, and it wasn't even their most lopsided one of the week. Their previous game was a 132-88 meltdown in Milwaukee.

The situation seemed dire enough that New York Knicks executives Steve Mills and Scott Perry might walk in and give a follow-up to their strange State of the Union. That did not happen. Instead, Fizdale walked in alone, lamented that "the 3-point line killed us again" and took questions. The coach called the defeat "sickening," adding that he would watch the film three or four times and the players would "have to suffer through it as well." He said they had "a hell of a practice" before the game, but the output was disappointing. He said he wasn't worried that he might be the fall guy. 

Fizdale said the same thing about his job security after practice on Friday, per The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov. Less than 90 minutes later, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Knicks had fired him. Lead assistant Keith Smart is also reportedly out. There is no word on how many times he had watched the Nuggets game.

This is as unsurprising as coach firings get, but that doesn't mean New York was right to do it. The front office's defense of its offseason was laughable -- in an era where spacing, basketball IQ and defensive versatility are paramount, it assembled a roster that was low on all three. This is not Fizdale's failing, and it is not fair that he ended up the scapegoat. 

Fizdale often talked about building his players' confidence, challenging them to expand their games and encouraging them to play faster and make quick decisions. When he was hired, it all sounded great. When the games started, it looked rough.

It was not just that the product on the court bore no resemblance to the modern, positionless, fast-paced, unselfish, defense-first team Fizdale said he wanted to lead. At no point in his 104-game tenure have the Knicks had any discernible identity on a team level, unless you consider playing centers at power forward and power forwards at small forward and taking an unreasonable amount of long 2s to constitute an identity. Last season, New York scored 104 points per 100 possessions, the worst mark in the league, and, after a summer in which it tried to climb toward respectability, it is now scoring 101.9 points per 100 possessions, the worst mark in the league.

For Noah Vonleh, one of the Knicks' many reclamation projects, the Fizdale experience was positive. Now with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Vonleh had the best season of his career in 2018-19, enjoying the sort of freedom he'd never been given as a professional. "Everybody is free to do some things, as long as you don't go out there and look crazy doing it," Vonleh told me about a year ago. Vonleh routinely pushed the ball in transition, facilitated from the high post and shot 3s without hesitation. It was fun for him and genuinely good to see, but there is not a long list of similar success stories.

Julius Randle, for example, has certainly been empowered to make plays in New York. No one is celebrating, however, when he barrels into the clogged lane, trying to manufacture offense through sheer force of will. Randle's assist rate and turnover rate are almost identical, and he is shooting 44.2 percent from the field, 24.1 percent from 3-point range and 66.1 percent from the free throw line, with the highest usage rate on the team. He has always been a ball-stopper more interested in scoring than creating open shots for teammates, but the Knicks' environment has exaggerated his worst tendencies and camouflaged his positive attributes.  

Maybe Mike Miller, the assistant who will replace Fizdale, per The Athletic's Shams Charania, will be able to rein Randle in. Maybe Miller can get the team more organized, make it more watchable and find some semblance of a balanced rotation. I can't help thinking, though, that Fizdale could have been a good coach for a sensibly constructed team, one that has proven playmakers, a clear hierarchy and shooting that accounts for the era of basketball we are living in. It's a shame he never coached a team like that in New York.