The Knicks reached the quarter pole of the basketball season Sunday night, and if they wanted to celebrate the occasion, they couldn’t have asked for a better patsy. Right now, the poor Pelicans are everyone’s favorite Homecoming Game, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram bedecked in sweaters and strapped to the injured list.

In college, they call these “buy” games, the built-in wins for which major programs shell out good money in order to sprinkle the schedule with gimmes (although Villanova may demand their money back from our Columbia Lions).

How bad was it?

With 9 minutes and 2 seconds to go, Tom Thibodeau emptied his bench. If you follow the Knicks, you know how extraordinary an occasion this is. The starters who started the fourth quarter on the bench stayed there. The ones who were in three minutes into the quarter turned over the balance of this 118-85 throttling to the reserves.